


Clarity

by MystiTrinqua



Series: Wings [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Anxiety Attacks, Drunken Stupidity, Ereri endgame, Lots of Angst, M/M, MCD in CH1 - Not Permanent, Nephilim, Partnered with Wings by Firanna for Levi's POV, RP turned fanfic, Slow Build, Some EreJean & EreMin, Wing Kink, mentions of eruri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:42:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 92,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MystiTrinqua/pseuds/MystiTrinqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Another one?" Grey eyes held Erwin’s amused stare with a begrudging look. "You know how much I detest babysitting duty, Erwin."</i><br/><i>"I was hoping he'd be permanent..."</i><br/>Of all the timelines that could have been, it just had to be his. Death isn’t death when you’re reborn a nephilim, tasked to spend an afterlife protecting humankind from any form of demonic influence. Unfortunately for Eren and his new mentor, the angel’s war is one that is not meant to be won, and that is a fact that has consequences which reach further than either of them know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clarity - 1: Handprint.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lutte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lutte/gifts).



> Anyone who would like some music for this opening chapter, here is a link. For anyone concerned about the pairings, the EreJean and Eremin are pretty much all in ch2 and 3. Ereri will win out but be prepared for a long, slow burn. =)  
> Currently unbeta'd except what me and Firrie can catch so please excuse any mistakes. They'll be corrected in the long run.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tBiuzjPb-8  
> Find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. My ask box is always open for people to come cry with me over these feathered dorks. Or anything, really.  
> Levi's POV can be found here and will be more or less recommended reading if you want to not be confused as to what's going on in later chapters. http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813/chapters/5839937

Eren was still humming the last strains of some techno anthem or another as he practically fell sideways out of his car, pulling his hood further up to avoid the rain lashing the snow underfoot until became sleet. He knew he shouldn’t have stopped halfway at that party, even if it was only three blocks away, especially not because he now has Christmas dinner with his parents to think about – he probably has to face more pleased overtures from his dad because he went with studying medicine over art at the last second when it came time to choose his major. Grisha had always wanted his eldest to follow his lead in becoming a doctor and anything less was unacceptable. He hated to think what the man would say if he came out after spending most of high school having to hide the fact he was screwing around with guys rather than on the look-out for the perfect sweetheart to settle down with. Perish the thought.  
  
He pushed his musings back into his ‘deal with tomorrow’ mental pile as he messed with the lock to let himself in, sheltered and a little warmer on the front porch of the place that had been his family home since they moved here from Germany when he was a little kid.  
  
The first roll of thunder he had heard that night echoed through the house as the front door slammed shut and he locked it again behind him. It struck him as odd, a thunderstorm in a New York suburb on the 24th of December, but he was much more troubled by the fact that all the lights were off and it was only ten. Neither of his parents were the type to go to bed this early.  
  
“Mom? I’m back!” His shout echoed in the ghostly quiet house, and then a stark white flash of lightning lit up a bloody handprint which clearly marred the pristine wallpaper of the corridor towards his father’s study, a sticky red trail drawn down the wall in the wake of something. The sight knocked all the breath out of him in one rush and he instantly regretted raising his voice at all. Now whoever it was knew he was still here – if they hadn’t already left.  
  
He fell silent and his bag hit the floor with a clunk as he dropped it, tearing down the corridor with his breath coming in short pants as the thunder and rain continued to rattle the windows. His father’s study was a mess, books torn and burnt and strewn everywhere, the desk almost upended completely, the bookcase empty and the wood charred. And everything was tainted crimson. Every surface had blotchy red handprints and most of the shredded books looked like they’d been liberally sprayed with red paint. Except he’d done enough biology in his life to know it wasn’t paint.  
  
 The first thing about it that really hit him was the smell, the coppery tang of blood heavy in the air but not as choking as the sulphur that accompanied it. Retching, he put his arm across his face in an attempt to shield himself from it as his eyes continued to scan the room only to be met with a crumpled heap of blood and clothing and broken bones that could have passed for his father once upon a time.  
  
For someone who’d never seen a real corpse before, Eren thought he took it quite well.  
And by that, he meant he ran in the other direction as fast as he realised what he was looking at and threw up everything he had in him when he reached the small bathroom at the end of the hallway, the thunder and the silence almost drowning out the retching echoing through the enclosed room, echoing back at him off the tiles.  
  
Half of him was no longer sure he wanted to find his mother anymore. He didn’t think he could cope if she was the same way as the image of the bloody body now scarred onto the inside of his eyelids. He was shaking like a leaf and as white as it was possible for someone with his tan skin-tone to get, and if he wanted to be technical about he knew the only things keeping him on his feet right now were the adrenaline of the fight or flight reflex and the shock and disbelief keeping him numb to the true implications of the situation so that he could focus on remaining alive and then collapse later.  
  
He exited the familiar terracotta-tiled, seashell-strewn bathroom a lot more composed than he entered it, his face set even though his hands were shaking as he silently went upstairs. There was one gun in the house, in a safe under his parent’s bed, and it probably hadn’t been touched since they moved into the place, but he’d had a lot of fun going to shooting ranges with his grandparents down south on the odd occasion that they visited, so at least he knew how to load and shoot it correctly without damaging himself like his father probably would have if he’d actually managed to get to it in time.  
  
It wasn’t until he came back down the stairs that he heard it, the feral growl echoing from somewhere behind him accompanied by that same sulphur smell. Not risking anything, he took that as his cue to run, full pelt, into the kitchen. If his mother was still alive then she had shut herself in the basement, and he had to go through the kitchen to get to it. Now would have been a really good time to have a torch.  
  
He vaguely heard his name before he felt a slick, wet handprint on his back and a leg swept under his ankles, kicking them out from under him and sending him skidding across the kitchen floor and into the wooden counter. The gun slipped from his hand and clattered away under the table, but he was barely aware of that, rubbing his head and tensing like a cornered rabbit as he stared out at the darkness from which he’d come.  
  
Something in the way the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up was certain that this wasn’t a house invasion anymore – or at least not in the traditional sense. How would a complete stranger know his name? Or rather, say his name with that kind of fond, easy affection despite having to be the person who had made such a bloody mess of his father’s study?  
  
“You missed all the fun, Eren.” The voice was icy and made his blood pound even more desperately as he eyed the basement door. It was wide open and covered in bloody handprints. He whimpered, biting down on his lip to keep the traitorous sound back. “You are Eren, right? I only know your name because Carla and I had such a nice long time together. Eventually all she’d say was not to harm you.”  
  
Eren remained silent, not knowing who or what he was even looking at but somehow able to sense whoever it was approaching in the darkness of the corridor.  
“I have to thank you, I suppose.  This was a nice way to start my time back here after having to crawl out of the Pit again, but it wouldn’t have been complete without the full set. And now you’re home.”  
  
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” he chanced a reply, slowly able to crawl to his knees as he recovered from being winded, his voice shaking as he ignored the tears that wanted to burst down his face now that he’d stopped moving and his stress response was dying out. “Where’s mom?! What have you done with her?!”  
  
“She’s dead, Eren.” The breath was knocked from his lungs afresh when he felt a cold hand slide under his cheek and twist his head, forcing him to come face to face with a set of empty eyes that he instantly recognised. Eyes that looked so wrong without that spark of life and _love_ in them that had been there was long as he knew what his mother looked like. “That’s why I said you missed all the fun, you could have watched.”  
“No!”  
  
The instant denial of what he could see only gained sickening laughter and the press of cold metal against the other side of his face, a sliver of fear running through him when the knife point came dangerously close to his eye.  
“Be thankful I don’t want to _play_ , bright-eyes. I know people who would pay a pretty sum for peepers like yours.” his unseen attacker replied, still cloaked in darkness and because they were stood behind him where he knelt on the square linoleum of the kitchen floor in a sticky black pool of what he now knew was his mother’s cooled blood. “As I said, I only stuck around for the full set. Nothing gets me off like stamping out a whole perfect little family in one night.”  
  
His body was caught between acceptance, a moment of ‘ _so this is it, then’_ that he knew everyone must have at some point, and the unquestionable urge to fight. There were so many things he hadn’t done yet. He hadn’t finished his degree, he still owed Armin at least three Starbucks trips for that last assignment he’d helped him on, Mikasa was still going to drag him to a yoga class… and now he was going to die without never having _lived_ in the first place. Unless he did something about it.  
Something he’d taken in from Mikasa a long time ago – if he didn’t at least fight, he could never win.  
  
Unfortunately he didn’t get much further than tensing his shoulders and trying to push up off the counter before a foot landed square in the small of his back, sending him reeling to the floor again. This time when the knife came back it was curving around his throat with enough pressure to make him bleed, the thunder outside echoing the rage and despair bubbling over as the blade brought him to a momentary halt.  
“Be seeing you, Eren.” the voice mocked. “Come find me on the other side, if you think you can take it.”  
  
Then the blade pulled sideways and Eren was unceremoniously dropped to the floor face first, twitching like a gutted fish heated stickiness draining into his shirt, his mother’s eyes reflecting his own horrified expression back at him, the footsteps echoing as they faded away. The last thing that went through his mind as everything slowly faded to darkness amid the thunder and rain was the thought that if only he’d come back earlier, maybe he could have saved them. Not that it mattered now.

*****

I am no longer sure who I am. White light is all I am aware of, blinding but soft, coming from above me. The light takes away any sense of the physical world that I think I used to have – if I ever had a body, I can’t feel it now. I merely exist, part of time but outside of it, in a self contained bubble, a microcosm of nothing but myself.

The light is an intruder, but not unwelcome. Rather, it is warm, and most importantly, it doesn’t hurt – although my perception of ‘hurt’ aside from it being a bad thing that I shy away from and do not want to happen again is rather dulled, because how can something with no nerves feel pain? - whatever happened Hurt, capitalisation entirely required. It Hurt a lot.

It watches for a long time, this light, vibrating just outside the realm of the boundaries I recognise as part of me. It is comforting, and the universe is just me and the light. Eventually, there is a sense of presence behind it, a sense of something coming. An abstract ‘something’ which blurs the edges of the light and dims it.  
It speaks a word without a mouth to move, and without ears, I hear it.  
  
_Eren._  
  
I am Eren.

Although I don’t know what ‘Eren’ is, can’t understand enough to really fit the mould of the person I am becoming again, my sense of self reorganises and conforms to a familiar shape. Human. Male. Young. Consciousness unfolds again, and my eyes open.

I become aware that I actually have eyes again, screwed half shut against the light. I have a body, a physical presence, but no sense of weight as I stand on something flat and solid amid the light still dulling everything else to insignificance, and I am looking upward, my head tilted all the way back as the light intensifies around a single point and then blossoms into a vague suggestion of a human figure obscured by light.  
“Who are you?”  
  
_I am Zadkiel, angel of freedom and mercy._ The voice appears in my head with no discernible face to assign to it, so I nod. Faintly I know I am not religious – religion was too limiting for my scientific mind, too power hungry for my dislike of authority. It lacked proof and therefore had no credibility and no meaning. But now it had proof, so I was willing to listen when the angel spoke again. _You have been wronged, Eren. I offer you the chance to address that grievance, but you must agree to it of your own free will._  
  
“Wronged?”  
  
_Your mother and father, and your life were taken when they were not supposed to be. Taken by a demon who we failed to stop. Therefore, we owe you this chance to take vengeance for yourself with your own hands._

Mother. Father. The words are hot and sharp in my mind, burning my eyes and my throat, and suddenly they are the most important things in the world again. How could I have forgotten my parents? A bloodied up kitchen floor flashes before my eyes, the frail, twisted body of the woman who gave birth to me staring blankly at nothing. I hate those eyes but I drown in them all the same, the sense of peace that had flooded me before leaving me with the force of an explosion that punches holes in me on its way out as I fall to my knees, tears that are bitter with anger streaming down my face.

 _ **Demon.**  _While my anger instantly turns inward, raging like a toxic storm that makes my whole body shake, it also hones in on the word. If I can do something to redress this, to make the thing feel a fraction of the pain it caused me, I will. I have to.

The sense of duty to them is inescapable. I cannot honour their memory unless I take this chance. It’s bad enough that I forgot them, even for a second. Family has always been everything to us even as a unit of only three people.

“What do I have to do?”

_You must agree to sacrifice your place in the cycle of rebirth, and in return we will change what you are – you will become a Nephilim, a being halfway between the worlds of human and angel, possessing the best of both. The purpose of your existence will be to bring death to the demons who have done this to you._

I had heard of rebirth before, a vague concept that I never paid much attention to. But hearing it spoken of like this gave it a weight that I hadn’t given it before. If I was ‘sacrificing my place’ in it, then surely I should know what I was giving up with that.  
So I ask.

“What is the cycle of rebirth?”

_Human souls are special. When you die, you are not lost, the energy that forms your soul simply recycles itself into a new existence and you are born on Earth again in a new life with no memory of the last one. Awareness of too many existences is not something your body is designed to cope with._

The angel seemed to sense my next question before it formed.

_As a Nephilim, you keep the awareness of the life you had last. You will forget this, right now, much like you never keep your memories of being born, but you will not forget your parents or what they meant to you._

That instantly eased the worry before I had to speak it, and the choice didn’t really seem much of a choice at all – if this was the path on which I kept my memories of them, this was the path I would take. I take in a breath, let it go again, open my eyes.

“Then I accept.”

The angel nodded, taking note of my agreement, but continued to speak.

_Nephilim gather around focused points in time, but every parallel world is open to you from now on and your job is to police those worlds so that this does not happen again. You may, incidentally, cross your own timeline and save yourself from a demon without realising it. It is best not to try and interact with yourself, however._

There was a moment of silence as I nodded, wiping a hand across the back of my eyes and standing up, stretching my arms out to my sides in a gesture of welcome.

“I accept. Do whatever you have to do.”

 _Very well._ The angel raises one hand toward me and I feel a crippling pain blister across my senses, sending me lurching forward, doubled over. It spreads across my back and down my shoulders and nearly drowns out everything else as the light spreads to me, thrumming through every part of my being as a sharp tugging pulls me somewhere. _Freedom and Mercy, Eren Jaeger. Live by these things and find happiness, if you can._

Then the light flares, stutters out, and I lose all awareness again.

*****

The first thing he became aware of was that he actually has a body again. He could clearly _feel_ the boundaries set out by his skin, feel his muscles shifting and uncoiling as he tried to move. Except he can’t move, because the instant he did he became aware of something else, his back.  
  
All of a sudden the pain is the beginning and the end of his entire world, the room beyond the plain white sheets of the hospital bed he found himself laid out on dim and unfocused as he screamed bloody murder through an already torn throat and thrashed weakly, unable to do much more than roll over onto his front to alleviate the white hot burning sensation in his back and shoulder-blades. The pain remained unabated and throbbed down his spine in nauseating pulses, searing through everything else.  
  
Someone might vaguely have spoken his name, but his attention was stolen from that when the knifelike pain seemed to focus directly, to hone in, definitely into his shoulder-blades now and nowhere else. Another wrecked groan was forced from his mouth as he felt his skin break and something started to press out from it, but for the life on him he couldn’t figure out what it was.  
“Eren you’re okay, its just your wings coming through. Stick with me.”  
  
A face entered his vision, vaguely connecting with a name, he couldn’t put the two together yet. He doesn’t remember if he’s actually been introduced to this woman but he recognised her somehow (she’s wearing the kind of thing you’d expect of a doctor – scrubs, white overcoat, glasses) as she leant over and carefully wiped the blood off his back with barely there touches as if she knew how much even that hurts him first hand.  
_Hanji._ Her eyes positively gleamed as she watched his progress, feverish and eccentric, but he would be forever grateful that someone was there for him right now. Glad that he wasn’t alone.  
  
Having his eyes closed only brought back memories of the empty, cold, dead ones he saw on his parents bodies, and with it came the stark, crushing realisation that he will never forget what he has seen. The memory was fresh and excruciating because of it, positively refused to be ignored even with the pain of his wings, but his anger easily overcomes it because the memory of his parents brings back the memory of the demon who killed him next. And the conversation he had with the angel who put him here. The anger that had been pent up beneath the sense of fake cheer that he used as a mask finally has a purpose and a target, and he would see it through if it killed him. Or rather, if it killed him again.  
  
“Eren, honey, I need you to breathe.” Hanji’s voice was almost lost amid the white noise still fighting to fog over his brain, amid the blood pounding in his ears. “You’re starting to hyperventilate, and you’re going to pass out soon if you’re not careful.” But he knew that. If he had actually been thinking about his own condition less like a victim and more like a professional he would already know that he was hyperventilating. He can spot his own damn symptoms by now.  
“I-Is that.. Is that normal?” he ground out, hands squeezing in the white sheets underneath him as he buried another pained whimper into his pillow, hot tears starting to stream down his cheeks as the stabbing pains made achingly slow process from his shoulders and he could faintly feel the blood trickling, itchy, down his skin.  
“Sure, most new arrivals do. Several times infact.” Hanji replied cheerfully, circling the bed as he twisted his head to gold her gaze with what felt like all the effort in the world expended for the cost of one simple movement. “Now copy me. Breathe in for four seconds, hold it for seven, then breathe out for eight.”  
  
Eren followed the instruction and copied her as best as he could when he was freezing up and swearing under his breath every so often, his rhythm having to break occasionally. It wasn’t much. She smiled anyway, dabbing more blood away as another painful spasm ripped down his back and out through the nerves of every limb in his body, the wings that he couldn’t see but by now could instinctively start to feel spreading upward. If his tired, pain disrupted estimate are right about what his wing span would have to be to match his height, they weren’t even halfway fully realised yet, and it felt like he was dying for a second time in one night already.  
  
In, hold, out. In, hold, out.  
  
He felt slightly better, but not much. The hyperventilating came to more of a slow halt the longer he continued to regulate his breathing.  
“Stops your fight or flight reflex.” Hanji noted, taking a step back for moment. The sound of a door banging open and shut made Eren shudder reflexively, and another chillingly familiar face swept into his range of vision. This one he did know exactly where he recognised her from, another sweep of protective rage and fear clutching at his heart. She couldn’t be here, he knew that. When he left she was very much alive, and they couldn’t have killed her too, not this quickly.  
“Mikasa!”  
  
“Easy, Eren. I’m not the person you think I am.” she greeted him tiredly, thick dark circles decorating the space under her tellingly damp eyes as she pulled a chair noisily up to the bed and held his hand as he was torn away from the words he wanted to say by another scream of pain muffled into his pillow as he felt another surge go through his wings. Felt them push further out from his skin, the pain of his feathers pushing out as they scratched against the open wound they were unfolding from pushing him well beyond the point of coherent speech being an achievable dream.  
“I’m from a different reality to you. Maybe. I’ll explain it later. I’ve been waiting so long just to see you again.. I—”  
“Save it, Mikasa.” A cool, sharp female voice that wasn’t Hanji’s cut across her and Eren looked back up to find a third person leaning over him, her expression the epitome of distance and coldness and not at all one he would have vaguely associated with that voice before. “He won’t be able to make heads or tails of anything until his wings come through and he sleeps it off, you know that.”  
“No. I have to know.” Mikasa snapped, her hand soothing as it gingerly stroked against his cheek. As though she was afraid that if she touched him with too much force he would shatter into a million pieces like some china doll knocked to the floor. It almost felt like he actually might, he’s in so much pain, the room and their faces fading in and out of focus in front of him. “I have to know if he’s… Eren, do you remember the titans?”  
  
Titans. The word struck a chord in him that was unfamiliar and ugly but he couldn’t recall any particular reason why he should, and his brain soon rejected it entirely until it just meant nothing at all. It felt like he should know more about them, some memory pertaining to what the word meant dancing just out of reach but slipping through his fingers like smoke when he tries to hone in on exactly what it is, leaving him drawing a complete blank. Evidently it was something she remembered from her own life, and not something that ever existed in his.  
“What.. what are titans?”  
Mikasa sighed, the sound trembling oddly in the air and leaving him sad but unsure why.. but the slow stroking of his cheek doesn’t let up and eventually migrates into his hair and Eren was always a sucker for that. There was something motherly about it, and he used the calming feeling to distract him from the pain in his back as much as he could. Pain that was still making tears bubble to the surface despite his efforts to bite them all back.  
“What’s the last thing you do remember?”  
“Christmas.. college.. dying.” he ground out in response, wincing around the dryness in his scream-sore throat.  
“College?” Mikasa tested the word out, as if she was unfamiliar with it, but the blonde girl behind her nodded, mouth set into a grim line as she gave her shoulder one last squeeze before turning around.  
“I’ll go get Kirschtein. He said something about a college too.”  
  
Kirschtein. That name rang a bell, but he couldn’t remember where from right now, his hand squeezing Mikasa’s other one until it started to go white and lose circulation, from the look of it. Kirschtein. Wait.. Jean? Jean Kirschtein? That pretentious asshole who came onto him at that frat party months ago ended up here? There was no way. No way in hell.  
“You’re doing well, Eren. So well.” Hanji interrupted, ignoring his whimper of pain as she gingerly ran her hands down the parts of his wings exposed to the air, which still wasn’t much, to say how much pain he was in and how long this felt like it was dragging out. “I can almost see half of your wings. You’re nearly out to the radius, then one big push and you might be done, okay?”  
“Okay.”  
  
It took him another two hours and in the end he _did_ black out, but the night ended with his wings fully on show, unfolded and lax against his back as Hanji and Mikasa worked to clear the last of the blood from them as he slipped slowly from unconsciousness to more of a fitful sleep, twitching every so often. It was a good ten minutes before Mikasa really caught the displeased look on Hanji’s face properly and she knew that never meant anything good, biting her lip worriedly. She could already hazard a guess as to what it was, which was why she didn’t argue when Hanji finally spoke.  
  
“I’m sorry, this must be an emotional time for you, getting your brother back...” They shared a look, and Mikasa found herself feeling grateful when Hanji pretended she couldn’t see the tear stains on her face, the inevitable by-product of having to sit and watch as Eren was pushed to the point where it was just too painful to stay conscious anymore. “But could I trouble to you ask our Commander to detach himself from a certain someone and come down here, please?”  
  
Yes, she knew why it was that Hanji was asking her to get Erwin, she could see it herself, and it worried her too. So she nodded, wiping her eyes as discreetly as possible as she bade Hanji a quiet goodnight and thanked her for taking care of Eren so far.  
  
It was another fifteen minutes of meticulous cleaning before Hanji heard the door rattle again, and was greeted this time by the sight of a tellingly dishevelled looking Erwin trying his best to look like Mikasa knocking on his door didn’t disturb him from doing something completely inappropriate for HQ with Levi. She’d been right as usual, then. Good to know that she hadn’t lost her touch, even after all these years.  
“You called, Hanji? Who’s the new face?”  
“Eren Jaeger.” Erwin’s footsteps came to a stop when he caught sight of the cleaned up feathers spreading from Eren’s back, twitching in his sleep along with the rest of him as his body started to learn how to work around their presence. “Erwin, I think we might have a problem here. Look at his wings.”  
“Eren Jaeger.” Erwin echoed, testing the name on his tongue as his expression remained otherwise untroubled. “Mikasa Ackerman’s adopted brother?”  
“In the world she remembers, yes. He doesn’t seem to be from the same one.”  
“That’s unfortunate. I’ve been waiting a long time for him to finally wash up.” Erwin replied, that same smile he always wore when a long time plot of his was finally starting to string itself together firmly in place. The same smile Hanji is accustomed to eyeing warily every time it surfaces, because it never means anything good in her many years of experience. “He stays. We’ll just have to wait and see if _that_ ,” Erwin paused, waving his hand in the direction of the bed, “means anything substantial.”  
“This isn’t a game, Erwin.” Hanji retorted, throwing her cloth down into the bloody dish of water she’d been cleaning it off in while working on Eren’s wings. Whatever he was plotting now, she wasn’t going to let him do it. Not with a brand new recruit. Not with one who clearly meant so much to Mikasa. “His wings are black. _Black._ And he’s _brand new_. Do you know what that might mean?!”  
Erwin shook his head, turning away, and clearly the conversation was over.  
“I know perfectly well what it might mean. He stays.”  
  
Outside the door, Mikasa let out the single deep breath she’d been holding as she listened, waiting to see what the verdict would be. Erwin was letting him stay.  
She had her brother back. For the first time in a long time, she was happy.

*****

Eren didn’t really recognise any of the other people gathered in the small lecture theatre, but he presumed they were all nephilim. Apparently they’d all arrived over the last week, just as he had, and now had to attend the “debriefing” as part of their initial combat training. For him the idea was insane. How could you have a debriefing for your own _death?!_ There was, of course, the high likelihood that it would be explained during the course of the next few hours.  
  
The idle chatter rapidly fell quiet when a familiar face entered the room, Hanji being followed by a shorter, decidedly more stressed but smiling new face.  
“Good morning, trainees. We’re back here again.” Hanji’s voice cut the room dead silent as the people lining the seats turned to watch her. “This is Nifa, she’ll be doing the rest of your theoretical tutoring.” The woman who had followed Hanji in gave them all a sheepish wave and then busied herself with setting out notes on the podium over to the left of the large whiteboard at the front of the room. “Then when you’re done here, the afternoon is your first combat training session. Lance Corporal Levi is responsible for that. Do not piss him off, you’ll need to know what he has to tell you if you want to survive your first hunt, and the Legion like the fresh meat the most.”  
  
Their resident doctor looked unusually gleeful, to say she was talking about what Eren took to mean the possibility of brutal deaths, and it was creeping out more than a few of them, some of the students leaning back in their seats a little and shrinking in on themselves. He wasn’t really sure whether Hanji was joking, either, which was the scariest thing. None of them knew for sure what ‘Legion’ actually _were_ yet.  
“On that note, I’ll leave you to Nifa.” Hanji continued, clearly none the wiser or not caring that she was making some of them a little uncomfortable. “Play nice, kids. Don’t forget you’re not _really_ a nephilim till you’ve got a bit bloodied up and earnt those shiny wings you have now!”  
“Captain, I don’t think you’re helping…” the other woman sighed, waving in the hopes of chivvying Hanji off up the stairs given that her jokes really weren’t lightening the mood any. Once she’d disappeared, their lecturer dimmed the lights and booted up a laptop, what looked like a PowerPoint presentation showing on the reflective white surface of the board. This was familiar. It was just like being in a lecture back home, except on a different topic. This he could deal with. “I’m not going to show you any cheesy instructional videos, so don’t worry. I’m just going to talk and if you have any questions you can ask me at the end.”  
Which was fair enough, he supposed.  
  
“So you all know that you’re nephilim now and the angels told you what that entails. You’re not going to age anymore, you don’t have to worry about being offed by any epidemics, but if someone stabs you, you’re going to bleed. If you get shot in the face, you will die. We can heal, yes, but combat injuries will still kill you.” Nifa continued. “What they didn’t tell you was about the enemy you’re going to be facing on a regular basis. And _I’ll_ tell you right now, this isn’t The Exorcist. It isn't going to be as easy as shouting ‘the power of christ compels you’ at a harmless girl on a floating bed. Demons are fast, ruthless, and they _will_ hurt you. They don’t care how old or how physically weak you are. If you have wings, you’re a walking target, and if you don’t use your wings now that you have them, you’re dead.” She paused, her mouth a grim line as she looked down at her notes. “I’ll be honest with you right from the start. Not everyone in this room is going to survive their first hunt, no matter how much they train. The angels offer this chance to everyone, but not everyone is cut out for the reality of the job. People will die, and that is a fact you need to come to terms with right now, before you even begin. Nephilim do not have time for PTSD.”  
Which was unlucky for him, then, because if he had to self diagnose, he’d say he was likely to have it already. Uncomfortably likely.  
“So if it’s not like The Exorcist, what _are_ we facing?”  
So much for leaving questions till the end.  
“I was getting to that, but thank you. Sasha, isn’t it?”  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
“To answer your question, Sasha, you’re not just facing demons – there are three types of things out there that are going to try and kill you.” the presentation slide flickered, bringing up a new one with a few images on that as of yet had no context. “But that begs the question of what a demon actually is, because all you probably have had to go on until now unless you were unlucky enough to be killed by one directly or die a possession victim is myth and legend.”  
  
The small red dot of the laser pointer in Nifa’s hand shifted, then, hovering over what looked like a human sized black cloud.  
“That’s a demon in its purest form, what we call a ‘full-blood’ demon, type one. Negative energy with a consciousness attached, and the older they are the more powerful they get. They’re human souls that have been tainted after a long stay in Hell. Which does infact exist, yes. Not that we know much about it.” Ironically enough, the next picture _was_ one of the possessed girl from The Exorcist. Probably the result of Hanji’s in jokes and what looked like Nifa’s unfortunately timed example. “Type two. Full-blood demons start with their own bodies, but once that is destroyed they have to possess human ones. They force down the human consciousness, but this greatly limits their power. They can’t usually talk or do anything too complicated because they can only control lower brain functions unless they’re very old and very powerful. The human keeps the higher brain functions. This is where you get your head spinning, ceiling crawling, throwing up pea soup horror movie stereotypes from, and nine times out of ten this is what you’ll face off against.”  
  
That made sense, and it was a lot more of a scientific explanation than he had been expecting. But he wasn’t going to think about it too much. Knowing this wouldn’t necessarily help once he got out there and all he really wanted to know was how to _kill_ the bastard things. He could probably learn a lot more from a double combat session with whoever Lance Corporal Levi was than being sat in here.  
  
There was another click, and the red dot moved on to the third picture, a black stick figure surrounded by a purple haze.  
“Which brings us to type three, Legion. While full-blooded demons are dangerous they are very, very rare in practice and you probably won’t face one for years. Legion are the most dangerous to you, and as Hanji said, they’ll be on you straight out of the gate.” Nifa sighed, still not able to meet their eyes, although it seemed more for the reason of distancing herself emotionally than being shy. “Although to understand them you’ll need a history lesson. Sometimes popular lore gets it wrong.” There were a few flickers on the screen, and then what looked like an old illuminated manuscript page showed on the projection.  
“Everyone knows that demons and angels have been warring since the Fall. However, both sides were, and still are, too evenly matched and the conflict wasn’t going anywhere fast – so the angels created us, the nephilim, specifically with advantages over demons in combat because we are half human and so not as weak to their psychological power.” the projection flickered again, centring on what looked like a medical drawing of a nephilim, wings fully extended. “Angels are rooted too firmly in what we’d call the metaphysical, they are easily knocked off balance and destroyed by the chaotic force demons put out. The reverse is also true, of course, but nephilim can blend in with humans and do the hunting for them this way without risking any of the same damage.”  
  
Which didn’t really answer the question of where Legion came in, but he assumed that would come up as the next topic to be addressed.  
“The Legion are half demon, half human. We don’t know their exact origins, but we’re assuming that the demons made them much the same way the angels made us, in order to balance out the scales. It’s why you probably will never see an angel again unless you go to a neutral area, the Legion are just as effective at killing them as we are at killing demons so they don’t like being on Earth.”  
  
Setting her notes to one side, Nifa rounded the podium she’d been mostly hidden behind due to her height and pulled a chair up, regarding them all wearily. “I’m not going to lie, it’s a war of attrition between us. Whoever can kill the most of the other side fast enough wins, and no-one has had any decisive victories or defeats in a long, _long_ time, even by our standards. Questions?”  
  
“I did some reading on demons as soon as I had access to the archives.” This time it was Mina who had spoken up, looking shy but genuinely curious. “What’s the deal with their aura and it being toxic? Do we have one too that’s toxic to them?”  
  
“Sadly, we don’t, no. A demon’s power lies in what it can do to your mind, and our power is all in the physicality of what we can do to them on the battlefield. Its why we’re trained to shut them out.” Nifa replied, shrugging loosely as she glanced down at her hands, folded in her lap. “A demon can misdirect your thoughts and emotions if you let it, and the negativity that hangs around them can flood your body, using up your energy a lot faster than normal. It’s not literal toxicity, you’re not going to get sick. You will just be exhausted all the time, easily confused, slow to react, and obviously that’s not what you want to happen in the middle of a fatal fight. Once you get out of proximity, you’ll start getting back to normal again almost straight away but it takes a day or so. That’s why we never make the same nephilim hunt twice in a row.”

“The angel that brought me here said I had a lot of other past lives I don’t remember.” Mina again, a lot more serious this time. “Is there any special reason for it being me? This version of me, I mean.”  
  
Nifa tilted her head to one side and regarded her with an even expression, as if deciding what to tell her, and then smiled.  
“I don’t really have the answer to that. You can only become a nephilim once, and you have to fulfil certain conditions in that death to be eligible – you have to die while aware of the supernatural, or rather, die under circumstances involving demons.” she replied. “You might have turned down their offer before, too, in different lives. This just happens to be the you who accepted.”  
  
All Eren had really taken away from his own death was that this was his one chance to wreak some kind of vengeance on the demon that had killed his family at random. He could have turned the offer down, forgotten it all.. but his anger wouldn’t let him. Not when it finally had an outlet after what felt like a lot longer than the paltry eighteen years of life he’d managed to make it to. He would have been nineteen this march but now he’d never get there.  
  
“So how does hunting work?” he asked, hoping pitching himself into the conversation head first would distract him from thoughts about the fact that he wasn’t actually going to age anymore. “We haven’t had any specifics on it yet, is all.”  
“You hunt in pairs.. or rather, no less than pairs. Some people hunt in larger groups. But its pretty much just what it sounds like. You locate the demon and exorcise it or kill it to save the humans in its path with whatever weapons you’re most proficient with. Primarily this job is about saving innocent people rather than bloodshed.” Nifa replied. “You’ll be assigned someone to hunt with but if it doesn’t prove a harmonious match, you can be reassigned. Every time you go out you’ll be assigned an admin worker in HQ to report back to so that we can keep track with our records and will know that you’re safe while out on the job.”  
“Okay. Makes sense.”  
  
The rest of the discussion mostly passed in a blur because that was the first time that it had really hit home to him – he was going to actually fight, and he’d done nothing more than a few quick fist-fights where no-one really got hurt before. He had no real proficiency in any kind of weaponry that he knew of because he’d never so much as handled a gun before. The only time he’d ever really come face to face with real violence was when the demon that he never saw decided to redecorate the interior of his house blood red and slit his throat for him. Hopefully combat class would put an end to that, because he still had all of training left to find where his talents lay before his first trip out onto the field.

*****

It isn’t until Eren remembers exactly where he has seen Lance Corporal Levi’s face before that he realises that if the man is going to be teaching them like this on a permanent basis, he’s fucked. The last time he saw him, it was nothing more than a fly-by.  
  
His attention had instantly been taken from Mikasa, as they talked on the roof of the HQ building one lunch, by the Lance Corporal descending from the sky. Much like Mikasa, he seemed like an absolute natural in the air, completely at home, his landing light and natural rather than Eren’s clunkiness. Although he was shorter than either of them he moved with with an internal feline grace that both demanded attention and simultaneously kept everyone at arm’s length. At the time, Eren had fallen silent in what he refused to later admit was an awkward mixture of awe and fear, not even thinking to ask Mikasa who he was as he swallowed around a dry throat while Levi offered her a quick, one-word greeting and then headed inside.  
  
“Listen up, because I’m only going to tell you this once.” Levi’s voice called him back to the present with all the abruptness of blunt force trauma, and he blinked, wondering when he’d got up to the front of the room. “I don’t want to see any of you using your wings in combat yet, not till you have a lot more practice. The first thing a demon will go for is your wings if it can see them, and as soon as you’re grounded, you die.”  
  
Mikasa left Eren’s side and headed to the front of the room, silently joined by a familiar short blonde. Annie Leonhardt had been Armin’s girlfriend, before. But she looked totally different now, her face cold and her eyes showing nothing but silent discontent and disinterest to the rest of the room.  
“Rather than waste all our time explaining the standard that you will need to reach in order to survive here, I have called one of our top ranking hunting pairs in to **show** you.” Levi continued, his tone as disinterested as Annie’s blue eyes. “Ms. Ackerman and Ms. Leonhardt both received extensive military training and front line experience in their past lives, and now work as deep cover operatives in some of the more dangerous locations we are trying to keep clear, so don’t make the mistake of trying to compare yourselves to them. Just watch and try to learn.”  
  
He’d seen Mikasa and Annie spar before, but it was nothing like this last time, so he was forced to assume that they had been holding back. As per the Lance Corporal’s earlier instruction to the new trainees both fighters kept their wings hidden, but that didn’t make their clash any less brutal. Mikasa was _fast_ , so fast he almost couldn’t keep up with her movements, but Annie was constantly blocking her or using her momentum against her, putting up a defense that was proving almost impossible to get around. It seemed like the entire room flinched and drew back when Annie finally got bored of being defensive and effortlessly brought Mikasa to the floor by kicking her feet out from under her and outright flipping her straight onto her back.  
  
They were moving in perfect sync with each other, as thought they regularly went for each other’s throats, and although a fierce anxiety clenched at him when Annie shrugged and pulled a knife from its sheath on one of the leather harness belts attached to either side of her thighs, Mikasa seemed completely unmoved, reaching up behind her head to draw the katana strapped to her back as though this kind of escalation to a simple sparring session for tutorial purposes was a completely regular occurrence.  
  
After a brief moment in which Mikasa looked to their ‘instructor’ and after Levi nodded from his position leant against the wall, arms folded and expression impassive, the two of them finally allowed their wings to show. Mikasa’s soft, cream-white feathers were a familiar sight but he was surprised to find that Annie’s wings were a much darker navy blue, almost as dark as his. Coloured wings weren’t that irregular – Sasha’s were a pale, powder blue – but he’d never seen anyone else’s so dark.  
  
Within a few moments after carefully stretching their wings to warm up the muscles, the insane display of expertly applied brute force started up again. Only this time they were both the going for first blood, and it showed. The fact Annie chose to go for a knife and therefore had much less reach didn’t seem to deter her in the slightest, and in fact there were several moments where he thought Mikasa was going to lose as she was floored or sent crashing into walls as the two of them made the fight airborne, but she always managed to pull back at the last second.  
  
The small crowd of observers were tense as the two of them came to a halt at last, Annie’s hand loosely threaded into Mikasa’s hair to pull her head back and expose her throat to the press of the knife blade in her other palm. Despite her loss Mikasa was smiling as Levi waved Annie off and the shorter girl offered her a hand up, muttering something conspiratorial to her that seemed to make her strangely nostalgic given the sudden soft twist in her expression.  
  
“Pair up.” Levi’s voice dragged him from his thoughts for the second time since the session had started as Mikasa and Annie looked his way, the former motioning for him to join them while Annie regarded him with the same boredom she did everything else. “And try not to hurt each other too badly.”

 


	2. Clarity - 2: Spreading Wings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Familiar faces begin to reoccur, and one person in particular plays on Eren's mind as he begins to carve his place within the nephilim's ranks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, Chapter 2. This chapter has given me so much grief it is unbelievable and marks the last chapter, pretty much, that wasn't roleplayed between Firanna and myself. There are elements of both EreJean and Eremin in this chapter but this is pretty much the only part of this fic that has them. I'm multishipping trash and not sorry.  
> As usual, you can find me as mystitrinqua on both Twitter and Tumblr, and please don't forget to check out Firrie's half of this chapter when you're done, see what Levi's upto. ;)  
> Music for this chapter can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLQPy__ljr0 because it's a very EreJean song to me, and their relationship (such as it is) is quite important to Eren in this chapter.

“On your feet.” Eren bit back the urge to groan, exhaling harshly instead of giving his own internal frustration the benefit of sound. Annie’s shadow fell across his face as she extended her hand to help him up, and he gratefully accepted the offer, tilting his head slightly to try and ease out the ache in his neck vertebrae. “We’re not done yet.”  
  
If he’d made the mistake of judging this Annie to be remotely the same as the distanced but friendly person he remembered, that had come to an abrupt stop when he watched the way she fought Mikasa. The Annie he had known wasn’t shy by any standard of the word, just introverted and strictly policed her own space. It wasn’t hard for Armin to reach out to her, they both loved studying the same subjects despite her high level of involvement in the sports activities at his college.  
  
This Annie was just _cold_. Like she’d deliberately stamped out anything about herself that was approachable in the name of some resolute goal that he would never understand because he lacked any context to place it against.   
  
They had been in the training room for almost two hours now, an hour longer than everyone else, who had rapidly started to filter out. That was to be expected, though, as Mikasa and Annie had already planned ahead of time to use now to check out what Eren had learnt from his sparring sessions. Mikasa had claimed it was down to her being concerned for her reclaimed adoptive brother, and Annie… well, he didn’t know what Annie was getting out of this except perhaps some amusement at soundly beating him every time he got back up.   
  
Some of the others had stayed to watch, but most of them were filtering out slowly, getting bored or having other things to do with their day. Not Annie, though. And not Eren either – Annie seemed to be invested in staying here for as long as it took for Eren to stop getting back up, and Eren equally as invested in not giving in to her. A quick glance in the direction of the doorway showed that the Lance Corporal was still there too, unmoved from where he’d settled after making sure everyone had successfully partnered up with someone who was an equal match for them rather than pairing people up with someone who could overpower them all the time. By that point Mikasa and Annie had already claimed Eren, which, as it didn’t seem to leave anyone sans sparring partner, Levi didn’t object to.  
  
He was watching, but only loosely, his grey eyes looking blank even from here as though his mind was completely somewhere else, arms crossed across his chest as he leant back against the wall beside the doorframe. He was probably waiting for them to stop so that he could walk out as soon as the opportunity presented itself, and Eren couldn’t fault him for wanting to get on with his day rather than wait around on some kid who just didn’t know when to quit. It almost felt, if his disinterest was anything to go by, like he’d already mentally consigned Eren to the ‘going to die first’ pile. As someone not worth showing interest in or wasting his time on, and that stung for reasons he couldn’t even fully explain to himself yet. It also brought on the distinct urge to prove him wrong.

Not that Eren could blame him for thinking that in the slightest if he was, because watching him get his ass kicked by Annie and Mikasa in turns couldn’t be much fun after a certain point. He hadn’t been anywhere near the three of them except one, initially, the first time Mikasa had winded him in one blow and had him on the floor. And that was only to tell her to lay off on the new kid.  
  
He almost couldn’t deal with the guilty look that she’d turned on him after she extended her hand to pull him back to his feet that first time, idly rubbing his jaw which was still aching after the force of her punch. Somehow he got the feeling that their enhanced capability to heal injuries was really going to be a help to him in the long run. He didn’t need her pity just because he’d been a city boy with a stable childhood and she came from a life as a soldier. It wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter of whether he fought or not now.  
  
The training room looked a lot bigger now than it had when it was full, the padded matting on the floor stretching out around them in a rectangle to the benches lined up along the sides of the room so that observers had somewhere to rest out of the way rather than watching at floor level. The ceiling was almost three stories up because they had the space, being deep in the HQ’s basement, in order to give more experienced fighters the room for flight.  
  
An observation balcony peeked out on the third floor surrounded by a half wall topped with a railing so that people could view the fighting from a top-down view if they wanted, or watch competitors fighting mid-flight at eye level without having to strain their neck to look up all the time.  
  
 He wasn’t yet able to use it for that purpose himself, though, the trainees not authorised to use their wings in combat yet to encourage them to learn how to master fighting without them first incase they were ever grounded. Something he didn’t really see the point of when it was already being hammered into them that if they became unable to use their wings, they’d most likely die.  
  
It had taken him almost half an hour of falling over and then of tottering around like a newborn deer, clinging to beds to support himself, before he could even stand up without the weight of his wings throwing him backwards the first time he’d tried to get up of his own accord. The fact that he went straight over seconds after vehemently swearing that he didn’t need Mikasa’s help in front of her, Annie and Jean, the latter having turned up while he was still unconscious (and who rather unexpectedly _did_ turn out to be that same asshole he remembered from the frat party) didn’t help.  
  
Aside from that, though, he was really rather happy with them. The feathers were a glossy blue-black, having a raven-like shine to them, and right now given how new they were he could easily still get lost in just sitting and watching the light play over them as he minutely moved his wings this way and that, getting used to the way his brain controlled the tensing and spreading or relaxation of his feathers. He wasn’t used to them yet despite now finding it easy to move with them. Mikasa pretty much ignored hers and he didn’t quite know how she did it. They were a permanent weight in the back of his mind even when he couldn’t quite feel their weight against his back, and he was always acutely aware of their tiniest movements even when they weren’t in physical existence.  
  
The wings weren’t the same as the rest of his body. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew they weren’t. They _felt_ as much a part of him as his arms or his legs did, and they got tired and sore after harsh exercise or got muscle cramps like any normal limb would, but they still didn’t feel real on some level. It wasn’t like they felt particularly wrong, per se, but the feathered appendages had a distinct sense of being something _other_.  
  
Which seemed ridiculous when he thought about it, because of course they would. Humans weren’t meant to fly and they didn’t have wings. Anatomically they made no sense, either, because his bones would have to be a lot lighter to allow his body to fly and he’d have to have a lot more musculature to power them, and his scientific med student brain knew that. But they didn’t function on a purely anatomical level. By concentrating enough (and it had taken him hours to learn how to do it) and altering what Hanji had eagerly referred to as their ‘vibration at molecular level’, and Mikasa had dryly dumbed down to ‘putting them out of sync with the rest of the world’, he could almost remove them from existence to make them invisible to the eye, if not to his ability to feel them. Which seemed to suggest that what was making nephilim able to fly wasn’t powered by the laws of physics. They were instead completely supernatural, the wings themselves being more or less for show, or so their brains had something logical and real to control in order for them to learn how to do it.  
  
It was what allowed them to wear normal clothes without having to need large holes in the back for their wings. Hiding them didn’t seem to work when he slept, though. Even if he tried to sleep with them hidden he always woke up each morning wrapped in a cocoon of glossy blue-black feathers. It felt warm and safe, even when he woke up choking down screams and shaking because of his nightmares given that it had only been a week since the incident that caused his ‘arrival’. And he wasn’t inclined to train himself out of it, he had to admit.  
  
Each pair of wings, as individual as their owner, also came with a matching tattoo on their owner’s shoulders, spanning across their shoulder-blades and down towards their forearms. Eren’s were thick and black, tribal in design. Mikasa’s and Annie’s appeared more feminine and delicate and were white and a dark navy blue, similar to their actual wing colours.   
  
The biggest drawing to them was the sensitivity. In order to achieve the level of control over them required for flight he’d needed a lot more nerve endings, and to that end he’d found that his back was now a lot more sensitive to touch than it had been before, as those nerves running from his spine to his wings spread out from lower back to shoulders. The slightest touch was enough to make him shiver, and the slightest tug on his wings made him lock up and wheeze in pain.  
It was a physical weakness he didn’t quite know how to deal with yet, but one Mikasa assured him would decrease with time.  
  
“Tag out, Mikasa. Your turn.”  
Annie’s voice brought him back out of his quiet, spiralling thoughts, and he blinked for a moment or two before raising his arms to guard his face. It wasn’t like him to keep spacing out so much. He never used to do it before unless he was drawing something, and that was mostly because if he was drawing he didn’t have to think. He could just let the art do itself and lose his stress to the simple physical process of creation.  
  
Mikasa folded hers arms as she observed him, biting her lip slightly and clearly unsure about the whole thing as her eyes flicked from Eren’s bruised face over his bloody, bandaged knuckles. Her face remained impassive but Eren had known her long enough in one way or another to know she was considering calling it off for the day.  
“I don’t know.. class has ended already. Maybe we should take a break.”  
“Don’t take me lightly, Mikasa.” Eren replied, beating Annie to it when the blonde opened her mouth to argue in favour of continuing and causing her to glance at him and then grin, wolfish, with a look that would have unsettled a smarter person. “I might not be the person you remember but I’m not a damn pushover, so bring it.”  
  
He regretted it slightly as soon as the words were out of his mouth, seeing the way she seemed to close in on herself at the reminder that despite the fact he was back in her life, he wasn’t the person she wanted him to be. He wasn’t the person that she knew, that she’d grown up with, gone through what sounded like some pretty serious trauma with. Still, he’d said it now and there was no way to take it back, no purpose in trying.  
“Alright.” she replied flatly, clearly putting her in-the-field level of mental detachment back in place as easily as sliding on a mask. “Stop looking at me like that. If you beat one of us I’ll buy you dinner.”  
“Done.” He wondered if this would be the thing that motivated her to stop pulling her punches and actually fight him properly, even if it overpowered him. Maybe if she was offering some form of recompense or challenge, she wouldn’t feel quite so guilty. “Now come at me.”  
  
And she did, but this time he was relaxed and ready for the movement, mirroring Annie’s stance as he stepped smoothly backward to dodge her. Her attempt to swing her heel into his solar plexus fell short, and he grabbed her ankle and pulled, raising her leg and shifting his weight backward in an attempt to make her lose her balance.  
  
He wasn’t expecting her to follow the momentum and jump on him, using his grip as a springboard to shift her weight with as she hooked her knees behind his head and squeezed down on his throat with her legs, twisting, the full weight of her agile body enough to tip his backward momentum so that he was driven to the floor on his back, the matting banging loudly beneath them as he groaned out a curse. Mikasa catching her landing on his ribs had quickly winded him again.  
“Nice. You’re learning fast, Jaeger.” Annie’s voice sounded from somewhere too far behind him to be seen as Mikasa climbed off him, their sarcastic delivery not changing the fact that her words were the closest thing to a positive comment that had left her mouth in the entire week he’d spent around her. “But there’s an easy way to find out just how close you really are to the reckless idiot we knew.” She caught him by the collar of his shirt this time, dragging him to his feet as she glanced over at Mikasa. “You’re not pushing him hard enough, you’re never going to bring it out of him like this.”  
“Bring.. what out?” He coughed as Annie released him and pushed him back a step, taking Mikasa’s vacated spot opposite him.  
“You’re like me, Eren. You’ve always been like me.” Annie replied, her guard already raised as she observed him with eyes that reminded him eerily of staring back at a shark, the light blue colour of her irises sharp and unforgiving ice around the bottomless black of her pupils. “There’s a monster hiding somewhere under that loud, showy surface.”  
Over to his left, he heard Mikasa inhale sharply, as though something had passed between them unspoken under Annie’s words that he’d missed.  
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”  
  
Annie began to circle him, quiet, and he moved too – away from her, echoing her steps defensively as he copied her stance again. Tension coiled through him that hadn’t been there before as her gaze narrowed on him with a force of a spotlight, her passive, bored expression unchanged.  
“Right now, you talk a lot. That’s something that hasn’t changed about you either.” she replied. “You talk a big game about vengeance and other idealistic bullshit, but we’re both putting you to the floor without any trouble at all. And that’s not because you’re new. It’s because you’re holding back.”  
  
He blinked, continuing to move back from her and unsure what she meant. He was vaguely aware that everyone left in the room was watching them now with pointed interest, because they _knew_ what seeing Annie on the prowl meant.  
“How can I be holding back? I don’t know half the things you do yet. I don’t have any past life training to fall back on.”  
“That’s right, you don’t. But you don’t _need_ to.” Annie replied, shrugging minutely. “You’re _angry_ , Eren. That anger is your monster, but it needs a goal. A target. Something to focus your willpower on, and that’s all. So give it one. Take me down.”  
“Why are you asking me to do something you know I can’t?!”  
He wasn’t back ing away from her, but he wasn’t advancing either. He could feel his patience just waiting to snap the more she pushed. She knew she was going to beat him again already so why taunt him like this? Why tell him he could do something she knew he had no chance at?  
  
“Because I know you can. You’ve taken me down before, and you can do it again.” Somehow he got the feeling this is what Mikasa had picked up on that he hadn’t. He knew what ‘before’ probably meant, and the way Mikasa’s fists tightened until her knuckles were white, gaze dropping momentarily to the floor, was all he needed. But he asked anyway, sensing that this was about as much chance to truly understand Annie as he was going to get any time in the near future.  
“Before?”  
“Yes, _before._ You know exactly what I mean.” She was closing in on him again and he responded by continuing to move away, wanting to follow this conversation to its conclusion because he hadn’t seen Annie talk this much yet and it was a lot more interesting than being punched again. “I know Mikasa didn’t tell you, but that war we both fought in? The one that cost you that set of parents? I was on the other side to the pair of you. I betrayed you both.”  
He sucked in a breath, startled. How the hell could Mikasa be this close to her if she had been their enemy?  
  
“And I killed you for it?” he asked, throat going impossibly dry as Mikasa screwed her eyes shut and turned her head away, clearly remembering something painful.  
“No. I took the coward’s way out in the end.” Annie replied, tilting her head to one side. “But you certainly gave it your best shot. Had I been human you might have.”  
Mikasa had already told him that he’d been a ‘titan shifter’, although he still wasn’t  
completely clear on what titans were, exactly, aside from the fact that their destructive capability was enormous and they were a constant threat, so his ability to become one was a massive gain for their side as soon as he learned how to utilise it. Was that the ‘monster’ Annie was referring to? Had she been a shifter too?  
“Mikasa doesn’t think you’re the same, but I say you are, deep down.” she continued flatly. “So put yourself back there. I betrayed you, and now I’m trying to kill you, so you’d better stop me.”  
  
It took another half an hour of being slammed down onto his back, his own momentum used against him, of being taunted and then coldly told to try again, before Eren felt like he’d reached the furthest frayed end of his temper. He didn’t want to hurt Annie, she was important to his sister. She was important to their cause, as one of their top hunters, and he appreciated the fact that she was trying to teach him something she evidently considered important.  
  
He also didn’t want to hurt her because although he tried to feign ignorance, deep down he knew just how right she was. He couldn’t risk losing his temper because he already knew after beating more than a few high-school bullies to a fine pulp, after no-one could break up his fights fast enough, that when he snapped, he _snapped_. To say he needed anger management sessions as a kid didn’t even begin to cover it, and it was even worse now he had a genuine grievance that kept him up at night to thrash out.  
  
Half an hour, but he couldn’t stop himself now. He was sick of being here, sick of being repeatedly backed into a corner and then hauled back to his feet by Annie as she goaded him, shouted at him, told him if he couldn’t beat her now he’d better go crawling back to his dead parents and apologise for being a waste of space. It felt like everyone else in the room was watching and waiting for him to either give up or lash out and he was rapidly getting sick of that, too. Now he wasn’t going to hold back anymore.  
  
This time, when she rushed at him, he dodged sideways in order to allow her to sweep past him and hooked his arm around her throat, aiming a punch directly at the small of her back to hit the nerves attached to her wings he knew rested just under the surface. She choked, not dodging fast enough, and buckled backward before spinning on her heel with her centre of gravity kept low to try and evade his grip, returning the sharp jab right back at him, swiftly followed by another to the jaw. The fight turned a lot dirtier, and Annie couldn’t flip him on the floor now because he had his legs hooked around her waist and his arms under her shoulders, his weight pitched backwards to bring her down and hold her there, his hand around her forehead to pin her head back.  
  
It wasn’t until Mikasa pulled his hand away from her with a tight enough grip to make his knuckles creak in complaint that he even realised what had happened, time seeming to compress and his vision seeming to tunnel in on her as his mind reduced her to an enemy, to _prey,_ and nothing more.   
  
They were both panting, but this time when Annie got to her feet she was wearing a rueful smile rather than the bored scowl that seemed to be her default state.  
“See? Pull that.. whatever that was on a demon and they’re going to go down in ten seconds.”  
He nodded, glancing at her with wide, unsure eyes as he tried to settle himself again, thrown off momentum by the sense of sheer spite and wrath that had overtaken him.  
“I might even teach you a few tricks of my own if you want to learn.. but before that, I believe Mikasa owes you dinner.”  
This time when he was pulled back to his feet, he felt like she was finally seeing him as an equal, like they both were. And he wasn’t going to lie to himself, it felt good. Like he was finally getting somewhere, even though he hadn’t hunted himself yet.  
“Alright, but I have to nip back to my apartment to get something first. I’ll meet you at the place round the corner from HQ so we don’t have to go too far.”  
  
It wasn’t until a few months later that he heard or saw Annie again, given that she and Mikasa had left for an undercover mission. You couldn’t exactly have contact with someone pretending to have swopped sides and he had no intention of putting Mikasa in danger so he did what he could to avoid the loneliness – namely hanging around with the one other person he felt a connection to.  
  
It turned out that Jean hadn’t ever really left behind his weekend partying habit from college when he died the first time, and Eren was more than happy to join him in the endeavour of getting drunk so he didn’t have to think about any of the things that were bothering him. If he passed out from drunken exhaustion he didn’t have so many nightmares after all. And he supposed Jean wasn’t really that much of an asshole.  
  
The sound of his phone ringing jerked Eren away from the recurring nightmare of his blood-soaked kitchen floor, teal eyes snapping open only to screw shut again seconds later as he tipped his head back against his pillow. A low, tired groan left him as one hand rubbed at his tired eyes. A quick glance at the clock on his nightstand showed it was about 4AM, and he didn’t know who the hell was ringing but he was pretty sure whoever it was would meet a swift death if it wasn’t an absolute emergency.  
Hitting the accept call button, he held the phone up to his face almost instantly to avoid the burst of light from the screen.  
“If this is you prank calling me at 4AM, Kirsch-neigh, you’re in for a world of pain as soon as I can crawl out of bed.”  
It wasn’t Jean.  
  
“Quit your whining and get your ass to HQ, Jaeger.” Annie snapped, sounding just as pleased to be awake as he felt right at that moment. “Mikasa’s just going into HQ now, Armin just arrived.”  
“Armin?!” Eren shot up in bed at that, biting back a curse as the speed made the blood rush to his head. Still, the thought of getting to see Armin again at long last made the early hour pale into insignificance. He was a little apprehensive, because he knew that Armin might not be the same person at all… but the sooner he got to HQ the sooner he could find out.  
“No, Krista.” Annie deadpanned. “Yes, _of course_ it’s Armin. Did I fucking stutter?!” There was an undercurrent of worry to Annie’s voice that he couldn’t really place. “Get your ass over there.”  
“I’m up, I’m up.” he replied hurriedly, distracted by hopping around his bedroom trying to pull a pair of jeans up one handed while cradling his phone to his ear between his cheek and his shoulder. “Thanks, Annie. You can go back to sleep now.”  
“Praise the lord.”  
  
He didn’t have too much trouble locating Armin because he could hear him screaming shrilly in pain as soon as the elevator doors opened on the floor hosting their unofficial hospital wing. If nothing else, the blond had always had a gifted pair of lungs on him when it counted and it seemed that hadn’t changed, which was oddly comforting. Panic clawed at him, forming an ugly knot in his chest as he ran full pelt down the corridor towards the sound and vaguely wondered if this was what Mikasa had felt like when she heard _him_ screaming as his wings came through. It felt like a world away, now, especially because he hadn’t set foot back here since then.  
Hadn’t needed to.  
  
He could already see Mikasa stood at the end of one of the beds, and could hear Hanji speaking calmly, trying and reassure the blond teen thrashing on the bed, much like she’d done on his first night, but her exact words were being drowned out at this distance. Swallowing, he slowed to a walk and laid his hands on Mikasa’s shoulders. Her hands were wound around the thick red scarf that he’d given her to replace the one she’d told him about having in her previous life and had lost upon her mortal death, the material pulled up over her mouth as if to shield her from the world a little.  
“How’s he doing so far? Annie called to get me.”  
“Certainly still shouts like a trooper.” Mikasa replied dryly, smiling although he could already see tears in her eyes.  
“Does he remember?” he asked softly, still a little jarred by the familiar face of his best friend in this new, still relatively unfamiliar setting. Much like he imagined he had, Armin looked like a total mess, tears streaking down his face, his blond hair messy and his back covered in thin streams of blood as he bit down on the pillow under him to prevent choked screams escaping him. None of this seemed real. “Your world, I mean.”  
  
Mikasa shook her head, seeming to shrink in on herself in his hold for a few moments.  
“It’s okay, we’re still all back together now. That’s what matters.” she replied, pulling the scarf down from her mouth and sounding a lot shakier than the certainty she was trying to put behind her words. “I.. have my family back.”  
“Yeah.”  
  
It was another two hours of watching the soft, steel grey feathers emerge from Armin’s back before the process was over. It turned out he was part of the small minority who didn’t faint, but that didn’t mean he was anywhere near fully lucid.  
“Hey, are you okay now?”  
_“Eren?!”_ It was the first coherent thing Armin had said all night that wasn’t cut off midway by a wretched scream of pain.  
“Yeah. I’m here.” Eren sat himself beside Armin on the bed, getting up out of the chair he’d pulled up to the side of it so that they could keep watch. Mikasa had fallen asleep when he finally fell quiet, exhausted given that she’d only got back to HQ the day before and hadn’t had a chance to recuperate yet.  
“Eren, you’re supposed to be dead.” Armin replied weakly, clearly exhausted enough already with the stress of the arrival process as his eyelids flickered tiredly and he swayed a little where he sat. Much like him it appeared Armin didn’t really remember the part of this where he’d interacted with the angel that came to get him and didn’t fully know what was going on.  
“I am.” The admission was strangely quiet as it fell from his lips and he felt Hanji’s gaze move to him in sympathy, but ignored it. It was the first time he’d actually put what he was into real words. “So are you.”  
“Oh, right. I.. Eren.. You..” Instead of continuing to try to speak when he found himself cutting off, unsure, Armin seemed to push his sudden frustration and weakness aside and leant forwards, hooking his arms around the back of Eren’s neck. Then he pulled him down, pressing their mouths together, and the world around him seemed to jar.  
  
It took a long few seconds before he even realised what was happening, his brain grinding to a total halt. Disbelief was his first reaction, mostly because Armin was still fixed in his mind as the person he’d spent twelve years knowing was fully invested in women as far as sexuality went. Knowing he didn’t like the same things Armin did was how he’d realised he was gay, and now here they were, and Armin was kissing him like he thought he’d never get the chance to again, desperate for more contact.  
  
It was his first jarring reminder, no doubt the first of many, that this Armin wasn’t the same as the person he had known. And that, to an extent, _he_ wasn’t the same Eren as the person Armin clearly knew all too intimately. Letting him continue to believe anything otherwise just wasn’t fair to him.  
  
So he pulled back, Armin’s shallow breaths leaving hot tingles over his face as he fixed the blond with a gentle smile and watched his blue eyes flick urgently over his expression to try and read what was wrong from it.  
“Sorry, Armin. I’m not the person you think I am… I came from a different place and time to you.”  
Armin blinked, and then the tentative smile that had dominated his expression before faded abruptly, Eren intensely sad that he was the cause of its disappearance.  
“Oh. I’m so sorry, Eren. You must be disgusted.. I..”  
“No, I’m not. Not at all. Just surprised.” he replied, a little confused as to why Armin was expecting such a violent adverse reaction as disgust. “The Armin I knew wasn’t into guys, so he wouldn’t have done that. That’s all.”  
“Oh.” Armin’s fingers gripped the sleeves of his jacket tightly for a few minutes as he stared down at the bed sheets crumpled over his lap as he repeated the soft word. “ _Oh_. I guess I was perfect somewhere after all.”  
“You’re perfect to me, Armin.” Eren replied, quiet but fiercely protective. “You’re perfect because you’re _here_. Anyone who thinks less of you isn’t worth your time.”  
Armin blinked back at him owlishly, and then smiled again.  
“Thank you, Eren.”  
The two of them spent the rest of the night curled up in Armin’s bed, the black and silver of their wings carefully overlapping around them as the exhausted blond fell asleep in Eren’s arms and he remained, watchful, intending to stay with him as long as it took for him to feel safe and happy again.  
   
*****  
_Six Months Later_  
  
Last week, two of the recruits that had been attending the tutorials with him had gone out to hunt their first demon, their first instance of real contact with their enemy. They left thinking it would be routine, nothing too dangerous. They came back in body bags. Picked off by Legion, the official verdict stated.  
  
And Eren watched. Forced himself to watch as they were brought back to HQ and their bloodied bodies were taken to be burned. It wasn't like nephilim just crumbled into dust when they died, even though they were supernatural. They bled out, and cried, and left behind a cold shell on a slate just like everything else, the proof of their existence was etched into the minds of the friends and partners who had lost them.  
  
He didn’t know either of them by more than name and yet their senseless deaths were his first taste of the real danger that lay outside his routine of HQ and the apartment complex that his generation of trainees had been designated to. It was strange, living alone when he’d been used to having his parents in the house. He slept wrapped in the boundaries of his wings at night and actually missed having work to do towards his degree. Missed being able to pick his father’s brain when he wasn’t at the hospital, missed eating his mother’s cooking. And her hugs.  
  
The one thing that _hadn’t_ changed was his relationship with an unlikely familiar face – Jean. The two of them argued over the stupidest shit known to man and he’d be the first to admit it, but as Mikasa had dismissively pointed out at one point, it was because when it came down to it they were so similar in personality. The difference was that Jean Kirschtein was a cynical little asshole who liked to assume he was in charge.  
  
Why Shadis, their overseer, had thought it was a good idea to partner them together, he’d never know. The actual in practice hunting was an experience like nothing he’d ever had before. He’d never expected that having to deal with killing real people would be something that he could be okay with, especially given his circumstances, but all it took was the thought that the _thing_ that he was facing was the same as what had taken away his parents and suddenly it was like a switch flipped in his head.  
  
He was fast and powerful, now, six months of careful conditioning and the expert eye of their combat instructors making both himself and Jean capable of executing brutal if highly technical manoeuvres to corner and kill their prey. That was what demons had become, whittled down from one association in his mind – to fear, to explosive _anger_ – and transmuted into another. His methodology became simple. Fly faster than them, trap them, kill them. One after the other until no more remained and no one could ever be harmed by a demon again.  
  
The Legion were a different story. They _felt_ different from demons, for a start, and demons acted differently around them – if there was a legion around they were always the brains, always in command. They were sharper, actively more intelligent, and often deliberately cruel. And they played with their victims first.  
  
Eren and Jean didn’t exactly fuck around either. If they saw one, they went home first and asked questions later rather than trying to be glory hounds. The trainees learnt early on that glory hounds came home dead, if they ever came home at all.  
  
He didn’t really remember how they’d gone from Jean yelling at him to stop dodging the theory lessons because he should be taking both to being laid out drunk in his apartment, but he wasn’t going to argue with providence. He vaguely remembered the two of them sparring and then going out just to fly, racing each other above the cloud line and almost forgetting that eventually they’d have to turn back. It felt like he could just blank out everything with the adrenaline and endorphins rushing through him as his powerful wings carried him at speed through the air, Jean somewhere off to his side. Eren didn’t bother with fancy tricks – his advantage was his sheer speed when he really tried. But the one thing Jean had taken to was flying.  
  
While they were hunting they barely had to get anywhere their quarry at all. Jean could corral it with manoeuvres that looked like block-buster worthy stunts, moves that Eren was pretty sure would leave him a bloody splatter on the ground if he tried them, and then once they were cornered Eren’s speed was all it took to close in and finish the job. No-one had given Jean Kirschtein more shit than him over their time training together, but the things Jean could do in the air sometimes made him lose all command of speech. He’d seen him dead-drop six stories, opening his wings at the last possible second to stop himself hitting the floor; and something about it gave him absolute chills. It also made him wonder who the hell had taught him, because it wasn’t Mikasa, or anyone he knew.  
  
His first hunt had been with Annie and Mikasa at his side, and the way they both flew was completely different. They seemed to always be holding themselves back, shooting quickly from shadowed roof to shadowed roof as though they had to conserve energy and be as efficient with their movements as possible. When he’d pointed it out to them, Mikasa had just shrugged it off, but the complete lack of surprise on her face when she noticed what they’d subconsciously been doing suggested it was probably a product of their hell on earth of a past life.  
  
Jean was currently stretched out on his sofa watching his fingers wiggle against the light overhead, no doubt distorted because he was so blind drunk that he couldn’t see straight, and Eren snorted at the sight. He was no better, though, flat on his back on the floor with a sofa cushion beneath his head.  
  
They’d spent all night seeing how much they could drink now that they weren’t human and didn’t need to care about liver poisoning after a particularly successful hunt. As it turned out, the answer was practically half a liquor store compared to what he could usually drink. Jean had boasted about being pretty good at making Martini’s and Eren had taken him up on it, and somehow they’d returned to his apartment with half a cocktail menu.  
  
The unmistakeable opening notes of ‘ _Welcome To The Black Parade’_ sounded from a dock somewhere on the coffee table, and Eren hauled himself up onto his elbows to look at Jean with a judging, incredulous look.  
“Seriously, Jean? _MCR?”_  
“Fuck off, Jaeger.” was the terse reply, the other teen avoiding his gaze as he stared at the ceiling with a sudden almost watery-eyed expression. “They were one of his favourite bands. Wonder what he’s doing right now.. heh..”  
“Who?”  
“Marco.”  
  
The name didn’t ring any bells, and Eren shrugged, sitting up properly somehow despite his dizzy head, the walls tipping and moving as he struggled to right himself.  
“Who?” he repeated, still confused.  
  
“Someone I left behind.” Jean inhaled sharply and then turned to him, calculating amber eyes zeroing in on his face with a pinched look that suggested he didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t get why you stopped going to Nifa’s lectures, y’know. You’re missing stuff you might need to know later.”  
  
Eren shrugged again. He had Armin to keep him abreast of anything too important to miss, now, and he was able to put things in a way that was a lot more understandable than Nifa right now.   
  
“I mean, I’m hardly one to talk, but a knowledge gap might kill you.”  
“S’not gonna kill me if I put that time into extra sparring practice.” Eren responded, running his hands through his hair lazily. “No offence, Jean, but I really don’t give a fuck why I have this opportunity or what the long and storied history behind it is. I’m just here to shank some demons.”  
“I don’t give a fuck either. But there’s a difference between fighting blind and fighting _smart_.” The two-toned blond shrugged against the couch in turn. “Not that I’d expect you to get that.”  
“Quit the preachy bullshit, Kirsch-neigh. We both know your idea of smart is with the least possible effort. You’re no different from college.”  
“Nope, I’m not. Not been here that long.” Jean replied. “And stop calling me that. The horse jokes got old the first week.”  
“Heh. Nah, you’d miss it if I did.”  
  
Jean’s apartment was two floors above his and more or less identical inside apart from the colour scheme, as everything in here was a shade of blue or dark grey when Eren’s room was mostly in mellow golden-cream colours and light teals like he’d decided to take up residence in the Caribbean Sea. The room was wood floored until the grey linoleum of the kitchen, the large open plan living area mostly seperated by a counter and heightened table surrounded with bar stools. Directly off the front door was a bathroom, and opposite a plain bedroom that he hadn’t ever seen the inside of but knew would be in essence just like his – with a closet and dressing table against one wall and a double bed against the other, large glass doors by the bed opening inward and lined with a waist-high metal railing to stop anyone from falling out if they were pulled open. Christ only knew what kind of crappy band posters Jean had plastered to his walls.  
  
Unlike some of the others who seemed to have been grouped together with them in terms of living space because they were in the same age group. Eren had a hotline to everyone in the building - all nephilim - incase anywhere was breached and their safety was compromised as a whole. The entirety of his generation of recruits had been grouped into one place just as had the rest of other generations, both to encourage them to socialise and to make sure that new recruits were kept an eye on when they weren't in the other safe spot - HQ.  
  
The building itself apparently never changed inside no matter what building it was being placed into as a shell. They could warp reality with enough group work and the right occult knowledge, thanks to angelic assistance, allowing the same multi-floor layout to be transferred anywhere in space or time as long as it had fixed access and exit points all in one place. It provided a sense of security and structure when everything else was subject to change.  
  
"That's something I still don't get." Eren muttered, lost in thought and trying to work off some of the buzz from the alcohol. "Times Square's got to be a massive tactical grey area, and we don't have big enough numbers to patrol the whole city with Legion taking chunks out of us every time we step outside. Why here? Why don't we move?"   
Jean turned his head to glance over, shrugging.   
"Y'know, I asked Hanji that myself. Getting sick of demons making a beeline for Broadway." he replied, taking another swig from his beer can. "And she said we're here 'cause we're supposed to be. Whatever the hell that means. This time and this place, we're meant to be here. So we have to stay."   
"There's times I wonder if she's gone nuts. All that demon lore doesn't do amazing things for your sanity, I imagine." Eren replied, smiling fondly as he thought of Hanji's eagerness to talk about her research either medical or demonic. "Wouldn't have her any other way though, don't get me wrong."   
"You say that like you know her." Jean smirked as he set down his empty can on the floor just next to the end of the sofa. "Please tell me you're not suddenly hot for teacher."   
"Hanji?! Oh god no." It was enough to make his expression twist with mild nausea. "I've been taking all my extra-curricular demon questions to her." he replied. "And we get talking is all. Makes sense to know all the weaknesses I can get info on and she's the one to ask about anything like that."  
  
"Oh I get it. You're still hot for teacher, just not _that_ _one_." Eren glared, catching on to his meaning almost instantly.   
"Fuck off, Jean." He shot back. "I know you don't mean Shadis and the answer's still no." "Give me some credit, Jaeger." Jean countered, smirking. "I know you well enough by now to know when you're in so deep for someone we may as well be asking what you want on your tombstone aside from 'suicidal bastard who didn't study'."  
  
Technically that was true given that this was hardly the first time they'd ended up like this. Given that he'd woken Jean up far too many times in the middle of the night already to make sure that Jean had working knowledge of how to talk him down from a panic attack, mostly an odd combination of fond, somewhat motivational insults and breathing techniques.  
  
It also meant that Jean knew him better than anyone else bar Mikasa, which was something that he thought would never happen in a million years, because aside from sharing memories, they had never had anything in common. Jean was an asshole in that he called himself a "realist" and Eren called him a lazy, cynical motherfucker.   
"Why does Mikasa wear a scarf all the time?" Jean picked a pretty random topic to change to but Eren wasn't going to complain. "It's not even winter, it can't be because she's cold."   
"'Cause I gave it to her." he replied simply.   
"Wow, fuck you, asshole. Conceited much?"   
Eren chuckled at that.   
"Nah.. It's not that. It's a past life thing."   
"Past life thing? How'd the fuck you have time to knit her a scarf?" Jean leant up on his elbows to stare at him bemused. "Weren't you all being badass and stabbing 15 metre tall monsters and shit?"   
"You know you were there too, right?" Eren replied, smirking back. "Apparently when you were thirteen you fan-gasmed over her hair and that's how her first impression of you went."   
"Well, thirteen year old me has never been the smoothest of criminals, in this or any age." Jean waved him off, rolling onto his side.   
"Neither has nineteen year old you, _jackass."_   
"Well then at least I got more attention than you, _bigger jackass."_   
"Mature."   
"To return to a previous statement, fuck you." Jean retorted. "You wouldn't know maturity if it bit you."   
"So, scarf." Eren felt like he had to redirect them or he was going to sit up just to punch Jean in the face at this point. "Turns out, in her world, Mikasa's parents were murdered in front of her when she was about eight."  
"Shit." Jean went a little pale and retreated behind his alcohol for a few moments.   
"Yeah. Her mother was the last Asian or something and the robbers wanted to sell her and Mikasa to an underground slave trade. People suck."   
  
Although he was able to tell Jean and sound composed enough the thought of it happening still made him sick. Really it was always the cruelty of humans towards other humans that surprised him the most. And he knew that he'd have done exactly what he did do at the time over again if given the choice. "Turns out my dad was a doctor who dropped by on a house call and found them dead, and he liked to bring me along when he went out." Eren continued. "Didn't really figure on me running off to find Mikasa before the robbers could get away with her to sell her off."   
"And how old were you?"  
"Uh.. Same age as her I think. I can only tell you what she told me, I don't remember any of it personally and I'm kind of glad about that."   
"Well, good to know you never change, at least." Jean replied, shrugging. "Seems like our core personalities stay the same no matter where or when we're from."   
"Yeah. Which is why you probably won't be surprised to hear that I stabbed two guys to death with a kitchen knife to save her." Eren replied, unmoved by Jean's hissed curse. "Then the third guy showed up while I was letting her out, and she stabbed him. Got blood all over us, probably scared the shit out of the police patrol when they finally turned up."   
"And the scarf?"   
"It was the first thing I gave her. The first thing she got from her new family after my dad decided to take her home." he shrugged, remembering Mikasa saying how much she missed it and seeing the bereft look on her face every time she moved to pull up red fabric she was no longer wearing out of habit.   
"So I got her another one."   
"But if there were police patrols in the area why do that? Why risk it?" Jean asked. "Not that I'm saying it was wrong, it's done and it's a bit pointless to dwell on what ifs." "Because there was no guarantee they'd find her. The police where corrupt as fuck apparently and I probably knew the area better than they did at that point." Eren shrugged. "They'd have been too late and I knew it."   
"Heh. Makes sense I guess."   
"Mhm. Maybe you should ask her what you were like some time."   
"Honestly I'm not sure I want to know." Jean sighed, avoiding Eren's gaze. "We don't remember these things for a reason, it's probably best to leave whoever I was then the fuck alone."  
“Yeah, true.” Eren felt a little deflated, now. Like thinking about the world he couldn’t remember but had seemed to have, naturally, defined Mikasa’s expectations of him was exhausting. It felt like the only person who wasn’t weighing him up against some unknown personal standard they already had for him these days was Jean. “That’s depressing, let’s do something else.”  
“Something else?” Jean blinked, sitting up dizzily, and then a slow smirk crossed his face as he took in the fact that Eren’s hands had moved to absentmindedly pull on the zip that fastened the red shirt of his stripped down hunting gear. “Heh, yeah.. I guess we could. C’mere.”  
  
Eren moved himself up onto the sofa and settled himself next to Jean only for the skinny teen to quite happily curl up into his lap, his hands winding into Eren’s hair and across the back of his neck while the brunet blinked at him, brain ticking over too slowly to react.  
“What’re you thinking?” He wasn’t annoyed, couldn’t bring himself to be when he knew exactly what was coming next, given how Jean was looking at him with an expression that suggested he wanted to eat him whole. No emotion behind it other than a need for physical closeness, for someone to cling to in order to reassure himself that he was still all in one piece and operating like a real human being. And Eren found that he needed that too. He couldn’t get it with Armin, there would an expectation of things to go further than a single night given the blond’s past attachment to him, but Jean understood. Jean didn’t need his future commitment, didn’t need anything but the present in order to chase away a temporary sense of emptiness.  
  
“I’m thinking… we could do what we did last time.” Jean replied, head tilting to one side slightly as he slowly closed the gap that still existed between their faces, amber eyes flicking down to his open mouth as his pink tongue flitted out to wet his lips nervously. It was a laughably tentative offer, ready to be retracted and awkwardly waved off as the alcohol talking the minute Eren moved to say no. “Kill some time. Give ourselves some much needed stress relief.”  
  
Eren let out a sigh, back arching a fraction as their mouths met in the first quick kiss that soon devolved into a much deeper one when Jean’s tongue slid against his own in a way that had raw heat curling in him. He panted little breaths against Jean’s neck when they seperated, persuading him to tilt his head with a harsh tug to his hair so that he could nip at the pale skin on offer. They weren’t going to be slow and loving, that wasn’t who either of them were, especially not to each other. This was going to be quick and messy and exactly what he needed.  
“Yeah, we could do that.”  
  
*****  
  
It was getting to the point where more new recruits were coming back dead than alive when they went out alone, now, so Eren wasn’t surprised when he heard from Armin that they were sending the new batch of recruits out on their own with a senior member recently. Their Commander had seemingly decided that it was a better idea that Lance Corporal Levi actively oversee the trainees first hunts and then recommend where they would be best placed based on their performance – and also keep them breathing with his expertise – which meant that he wasn’t overseeing the sparring training sessions any more, much to Eren’s silent disappointment.  
  
Which meant that Eren spent the whole afternoon before Armin's first night hunt pacing the floor. He'd developed somewhat of attachment to the Corporal, in theory, although he took pains to make sure that their paths didn't cross because he knew that having set him up in his mind as the ideal hunter it was better for his motivation if they didn't interact and he could keep Levi as exactly that - an _ideal_. He was perfectly happy partnering with Jean.   
  
He had no idea who they were going to pair Armin with, although it wasn't unheard of to hunt in groups of three if they had odd numbers, which he suspected that they did. New nephilim seemed to come all at once every so often when their numbers were getting low, he noticed. Which suggested to him that the angels they were doing all this for had some sort of greater plan in mind that they weren't sharing with the people on the ground. It was true that he vaguely remembered having agreed to take up the fight relatively quickly it only took talking to other people about their first meeting with an angel (or what little they remembered of it, which was usually virtually nothing) to realise that some people took a little bit more time to think about it.  
  
Surprisingly the person who had the most useful information on the topic was Hanji. She was the head of their research department in a formal capacity, despite being an authority in the medical side as well. When Eren asked her how long she'd been a nephilim she only replied with a knowing smile and berated him for thinking that time had any active meaning for either of them anymore. Her speciality, as it turned out, was demon research, her "know your enemy" philosophy being one that Armin had found almost instant camaraderie with - the whole reason he knew her so well was that she and Armin spent a lot of time together.  
  
It had been even easier to catch up on most of the theory classes that he'd missed with Armin helping him study. Although if he was perfectly honest he didn't see the point of them when in practice they weren't going to help him kill. And killing, in the right context (only ever in the right context) was all he cared about lately. Being able to sink a knife into a demon as it screeched in agony gave him a high like little else could, _surviving_ gave him a high, so much that he often didn't even notice that the thing was dead till Jean stopped him, pulling him back and away but usually too late to stop him being drenched with demon blood.   
  
You could tell the difference, or at least Eren could, demon blood was thicker and it smelled different, less like iron and more like sulphur. And it got _everywhere_ when he got angry, which was also quite a regular occurrence, his thirst for revenge an unsatisfied, endless wellspring of hatred to draw from as motivation. He was more likely to head straight for the shower than the first aid kit when he got home, and had got rather proficient at getting the stuff out of his clothes. Had the shirts been white, not red, the zip up the middle making it easier to strip them off incase of needing emergency medical care, he would have one hell of a cleaning bill by now.  
  
It hadn't been that long since Armin left, and his thoughts were mostly centring on how different he had proved to be so far from the person that he remembered. His current Armin was quiet, thoughtful. Which was true of the old one too, but this was in a different way - he didn't forget things once he heard them, and he didn't forgive either. He was just colder than the blond he'd known once upon a time.  
  
Which meant that when he heard the click of the front door, he was straight across the length of the blond's flat to the door as soon as he heard it, heart in his throat. Armin could be all kinds of bloodied up, Eren knew firsthand that he wasn't best suited to combat, he'd been training with him since he got here much in the same way that Mikasa and Annie had stayed around to train with _him._  
  
"You're back early. You hurt?" he asked tentatively, all restless energy and nervous need to check Armin over. His gut tightened and twisted when he saw the bloodied white bandage wrapped around Armin's head, pinning his blond hair to the sides of his face in a way that was oddly cute. If he ignored the blood, which was hard to do, the sticky redness something he could hardly tear his eyes away from, something that made his breathing speed up and his chest uncomfortably tight, a static buzzing ringing in his ears.   
  
"Nothing but a cut to the forehead." he replied, his chipper tone belying what Eren instantly recognised as a troubled look as it cut through the haze that had settled over him. He could always read Armin like a book, and that hadn't changed after he discovered the afterlife was a definite rather than a maybe. "I think I screwed it up."  
  
"Why? Did the human die?" Eren asked. It had become his number one concern, something that he'd picked up, Christ only knew how, from having Jean Kirschtein as a hunting partner. To say he'd been such a douchebag frat-boy in life (because as far as he was concerned, they were all still _dead_ here) Jean had taken to this new life like a duck to water. He was always and forever concerned with how the person behind the demon felt. What they could do to help the sorry innocent bastard being used like a sock puppet kick out the evil holding them hostage.  
  
And despite the bloodlust, it stuck with him - the idea that he should be using his strength to protect people so that what had happened to him didn't happen again. As Jean had so tactfully pointed out, he could bathe in demon blood every night but it didn't change the fact that sooner or later they were going to drag their sorry asses back out of hell, if he wasn't still alive to put them down for good. Exorcising their enemy sadly had all the effectiveness of batting away a boomerang, for all of the accompanying moral high ground that it offered.  
"No, the human didn't die. But the demon got away with him, so it wasn't a victory." Armin replied, looking definitely annoyed now, but the quiet kind that meant he blamed himself for whatever had gone wrong. "It got the drop on me while we were tracking it, and then made a clean break for Times Square."   
_"Fuck."_ Eren and almost every other actively hunting nephilim knew that particular pain. A demon's individual aura could only be tracked if there was relatively little background interference, so they all ultimately made a beeline for Times Square if they could, if they knew they were being watched and didn't feel brave enough to try and fight their way out.   
  
"Yeah, something like that." Armin agreed wryly. "Times Square gets about a cool 330,000 people's worth of foot traffic a day, there's no way we could have kept track of that one guy through all of that."   
"We've had that happen to us too." Eren replied, forcing himself to sit down when Armin shot him his _'Eren you're hovering and it's making me uncomfortable'_ look. "Me and Jean."   
"It's 'Jean and I', Eren." The blond teased. "Were you born in a barn? Because sometimes you speak like it. What's he like?"   
"Jean? He's an ass. We argue like cat and freakin' dog 'cause we're too similar." Eren replied, grinning widely. "Don't ever tell him I said this, but he's a good leader. Always keeps a level head. And I knew him from before."   
  
"Before?" Armin raised an eyebrow and then nodded as he caught on to the meaning of Eren's grave look. "Oh, right. _Before._ I knew him too, back then. Is there anyone around here called Marco?"   
"Marco?" Eren frowned. It didn't seem familiar. "No. Or at least, not yet. Jean’s mentioned his name a couple of times, but he won’t tell me anything about him."   
"Okay, maybe that's a story for another time then." Armin headed over to the fridge, pouring himself a glass of apple juice. "Do you think Lance Corporal Levi will fail me? I mean.. I got hurt, and the demon got away.. will they write me off?"   
"It's not like that, Armin. I mean.. Yeah, he might recommend that you train a bit more, but they don't write anyone off. We need all the front line fighters that we can possibly get according to Mikasa, given how fast our numbers can decrease sometimes."   
“It seems pretty quiet right now.” the blond observed. Eren nodded.  
“Yeah, that’s what I said too. But she thinks it’s because they’re planning something big. That’s why they’re targeting the new kids – it’s not newbie baiting, they’re clearing out the reinforcements before they go for the main players.”  
  
"Honestly I think I'd be better somewhere that isn't the front line." Armin replied, changing the topic before either of them had to think about it too much and setting his glass down in the sink and staring at it as he tilted it around under the cold water rushing from the tap. "I mean, yeah, I have combat experience, but I was always behind a computer screen before."  
_"You_ have combat experience?!" Eren replied, surprised that this was the first time he'd heard of it. Armin certainly didn't fight like he had so it couldn't have exactly been what Eren would call comprehensive.   
"I was a hacktivist, Eren." Armin replied, smiling slightly as though he wasn't discussing something intensely personal. From what he could tell of Mikasa and Annie and Jean, people didn't discuss their past lives generally. Certainly not as casually as this. "It wasn't quite The Matrix, but let's say things were... well, 'getting heavy', to use the vernacular."   
"Are we talking stop and frisk heavy or getting shot at heavy?"   
"The second one. When you're consistently doing very high profile illegal things on government databases you run the risk of the Feds wanting to put you six foot under, so I had to know how to defend myself." Eren just stared at his friend wide eyed, trying to reconcile his normal idea of the blond with the mental image of him on the run from the law. "It's just when you spend more time running and hiding and dodging bullets than in outright combat you begin to get a little rusty."   
  
"Right.." He replied, eyebrows slightly raised. "So what were you hacking for?" "Something important." Armin muttered, a reluctant tone to his voice accompanying a thousand yard stare that Eren was all too keen to avoid prodding at further. _"Someone_ important. But it doesn't matter now, we're both.." he paused, struggling for the word, "Gone. We can't see each other anymore."   
"Right." the brunet repeated, knowing that there wasn't really anything he could say and left feeling a little empty for it. "D'you think your side won, in the end?"   
"I like to think I did my part. It's up to other people, now." Armin smiled ruefully and shrugged, leaning back slightly with an expression that suggested he'd at least made peace with the idea that he couldn't go back to what he knew before, something Eren was still struggling with if he was terribly honest with himself. "Not like I can be of any more use from here. No, I'm happy with my contribution."  
 Eren couldn't say much more to that.  
  
Neither of them ever really brought up the fact that Armin had kissed him again since it happened, but what the blond said was making him think about it more and more often. "This someone important.. Are they here? Do you think they're gone because they don't remember your world?"   
The pain in Armin's eyes made him regret asking almost instantly, but he kept Armin's gaze. It felt like looking away would invalidate how seriously he wanted to help, how much he wanted his friend to be happy. He'd known Armin - this one, at least - for long enough that he was almost replacing the memories of the old one in his head. Didn't know how he felt about that prospect yet but it wasn't as if he could do much about it. Was that happening for him too?  
  
"Yeah, they're gone." Armin replied, dropping his gaze to his lap and looking more tired as the words left him than he had getting in from the hunt itself. "I might be able to talk about it one day, Eren, but not now. It's too fresh."   
Eren nodded and searched for a change of topic. Of course, where hunting was concerned his mind was only ever going to circle back to one place. One person.   
"So what was hunting with Lance Corporal Levi like? I don't know anyone else who has, Jean and I did ours with Mikasa and Annie, and Connie and Sasha had Hanji." He left out mentioning Hannah and Franz - the two trainees from his group who died their first hunt out. Armin knew about them but given the situation he didn't think the blond would appreciate the reminder that his cut on the forehead could very easily have been a more serious second brush with death.   
"He's quiet. Stern. _Fast."_ Armin replied thoughtfully, glancing out of the balcony window at the night sky. "I'm afraid there isn't much to say about him that's new, he's pretty much the same on hunts as he was in the training room. Disinterested until he's actually closed in on something. It's unnerving when he's focused on you, even if it's to keep you alive. The fact that he was silent about it didn't change how obvious it was that he was judging me."   
"How'd you think you did? He seemed to like your tactical approach to things when we were sparring." Eren replied - which was true enough, both Shadis and Levi had noted Armin's strength was in his logical methodology not his actual combat ability in the past while Eren was sat by watching Armin practice and they were teaching.  
  
"I don't know." Armin replied, frowning. "That's the thing that bothers me about him. I can't read him, and everyone else I've got the hang of by now. When you're surrounded by people who could be double agents you get used to having to weed out liars so I'm pretty good at reading people." The blond shook his head. "Him? I've got nothing."   
Eren smiled, head tilting a little in curiosity as he wondered what Armin saw when he looked at _him_. Whether he was just a ball of rage and incoherency, the ticking time-bomb some others treated him like, or whether Armin actually saw him for the person he was. Used to be. He didn't really know if hunting had changed him any yet, but Mikasa and Jean had both already warned him that it might. Had said that it had changed them, Mikasa less so than Jean because she’d already been through a lot that he hadn’t despite being roughly the same age.  
  
"So what about the Commander? What'd you get from him?" Eren asked, always interested in the similarities and differences between peoples past lives, as much as they were willing to talk about it anyway. He tried not to push too much but he was naturally curious. People like Mikasa and Sasha had been quite open about their past but not everyone was. Most of the veterans didn't talk about it at all, but given how long they'd been around it kind of made sense - their past lives were probably so long ago that they no longer seemed relevant to anything and therefore not worth discussing.  
  
"You mean what do I think of him?" Armin replied, clearly perking up and much happier for the changed direction of the conversation. "Or do you mean how is he different from the Erwin I knew?" "Both. I'll trade you - mine and Mikasa's versions for yours." he said, smirking mischievously. He knew Armin would value the information more than anything else because the more of it he could get, the more complete picture he could build. "Sure." It took a few moments of thought before Armin seemed to be confident enough that he'd avoid sticky details to reply comprehensively.  
  
"So mine was a political science professor. Not much else to tell really, because I only had him for one semester. Goddamn scary when he picked on you in a lecture though. People lived in fear of forgetting to do their work." Eren said, leaning back slightly and crossing his arms across his chest. He'd certainly never been late for one of 'Professor Smith's' (as he was at the time) lectures because if you were you could guarantee you'd always be getting called on. The problem was that he was so polite and friendly with his teasing that you almost felt guilty for not knowing the answers and God help you if you hadn't done the reading beforehand.   
"Seems fair enough. He's certainly got the talent for it and that agrees with what I knew about him before. My Erwin probably would have been a teacher if it'd been safe. Maybe he used to be and never told us, I don't know." Armin replied, looking thoughtful but far away, clearly lost in his own past.   
"Mikasa's told you about her world, right? How we were in the military?" A nod. "He was the commander of her division, our division, I should say." Eren continued, frowning slightly. Thinking of Mikasa's world always made his left arm tingle for some reason, his fingers twitching for a moment and then relaxing as he scratched at it halfway down his forearm. "Badass motherfucker, apparently. Always on the front lines with us instead of hiding where it was safe even though he ordered people to their deaths regularly. Got his arm bitten clean off and just carried on like it was no big thing." Armin's eyebrows rose a little and he nodded again.   
"But with their level of technology, the odds of surviving the blood loss... he must have had a serious type A personality."   
"Putting it lightly." Eren agreed. "As I said, BAMF."

There was a moment of silence as the two of them reflected how thankful they were that they didn’t remember the finer details of their own lives in the world Mikasa and Annie rarely spoke of. Then Armin picked up where Eren had left off.   
"Erwin and Levi were our leaders." he said simply, shrugging. "Erwin did the diplomacy and tactical thinking, Levi did the.. well, the blood-work.. as it were. Kept us all safe, as much as he could at least."   
"Seems to be a common dynamic for those two." Eren noted absently. It had carried over from both Armin and Mikasa's lives into their nephilim selves by all appearances. Armin nodded.   
"Well, you know what they say." the blond remarked, a wry smirk on his face. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Eren pulled a face at that. Hadn't it only been minutes ago that Armin was nagging him for his spoken grammar, and yet here he was flouting his own rules. "You've been hanging around Jean too much."   
Armin just laughed.

 


	3. Clarity - 3: Contact.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, me again. Levi and Eren meet for the first time and it.. well, you'll see how it all pans out.  
> Music for this chapter, try 'The Phoenix' by FOB or 'Cosmic Love' by Florence & The Machine  
> As usual, find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. Currently Firrie and I are beta-ing each other's chapters so please excuse any mistakes.  
> Levi's POV can be found here, and from this point out if you don't read both sides, you're missing out on narrative - AKA anything that Eren isn't present for but is still part of the fic. http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813

_Six months later._  
  
It seemed that the more Eren was forced to stay in one place, patrolling one small corner of the city by night, sleeping or training during the day, the more he wanted to leave. It wasn’t advised to go looking for yourself, despite the fact that he now had access to virtually any of the worlds he’d had past lives in thanks to angelic help… but he couldn’t help but wonder what he was like.  
Whether he’d graduated or failed here, in this world that wasn’t his own. Whether he’d had parents or ended up an orphan. Whether he’d met the Mikasa and Armin from his world yet. He also wondered if there were any worlds where he had an actual relationship with someone, because he knew he didn’t with Jean.  
  
Mikasa and Armin were still surprising him even now.  
She had never seen technology like computers before, and smiled when he showed her all the dorky cat videos he could find, but at the same time knew how to kill without mercy or hesitation. Knew how to disappear into countryside that made Eren flinch and turn in search of a hotel, and keep herself alive on nothing but what she could find or hunt if she had to. She came from a world where humankind had been trapped behind walls, preyed upon almost to extinction. Where every day could be your last and perfection was no guarantee of survival. She had watched her family die twice and had been fighting desperately to keep what remained of it – him – by her side.  
  
And now she would never know how the conflict that kept her awake at night had ended, finally, not unless she could find someone who remembered that world and had lived to see the conclusion of all the fighting. Neither would she be able to go and see the ocean. She could, of course, but not in the way that mattered the most to her. It was one of the things she’d told him that had actually kept him grounded. Mikasa seemed on the surface like she’d adjusted to her new world, but deep down she hadn’t, and knowing that helped him somehow.  
  
No longer having to study medicine meant that Eren was free to concentrate on his drawings when he wasn’t out clearing demons from the bodies of innocent people. When he wasn’t trying to stop a repeat of what had torn his family apart. He’d been drawing since the start of his teen years, as it gave him something to do with his hands that wasn’t starting fights. It also gave him chance to decompress and to save the moments of happiness he observed around him in everyday life for posterity. Happiness didn’t occur quite as often as disappointment or upset, he’d found, and negativity just kept bouncing back.  
  
Although his sketch books had initially been filled with the people he knew, familiar faces who came with stranger’s lives, studies of Armin, Mikasa, Sasha, Connie, Annie, even Jean.. had slowly all been phased out and replaced by brief sketches of one person, sketches that he was never happy with but felt compelled to do until he perfected at least one. Which was perfectly normal for him – the only sketches he’d kept of the others in the end, taped to his walls, were detailed final versions that he was happy with. For this particular person it just so happened that he hadn’t got to that point yet.  
  
Lance Corporal Levi, also affectionately nicknamed ‘Heaven’s Strongest Soldier’, was a man he’d little more than seen in passing around HQ and during training. Somehow the short, irritable man had attracted his curiosity with little more than a dismissive, sharp-eyed glance and an oddly held coffee cup. They had never so much as had a full conversation given that the only time he interacted with his commanding officers was during medical check-ups from Hanji, their resident doctor, and while attending briefings with their Commander along with the rest of the people in his generation of arrivals.  
  
Despite looking nearly his father’s age, he had to admit that Erwin was as close to the Steve Rogers stereotype as anyone was likely to get outside of Hollywood. The fact he could smile at you disarmingly while having a mind as sharp as a serial killer was more unsettling than comforting as far as he was concerned, though. It felt like the man was always ten steps ahead of him, always knew exactly what to say and how to guide a conversation or scenario to play out just as he wanted in the end, and it was irritating. Armin might like playing chess with him on occasion and having entire conversations in what was inferred rather than what was said, but that wasn’t his style, thank you very much.   
  
“Eren, Commander Erwin wants those status reports we got in from the base in Louisiana last week.” His pencil nearly slipped from the loose profile sketch of Mikasa but he managed to lift it before he left a line, scowling as he reached for a button on his watch communicator to turn on the small adjoining headset usually in his ear at all times when on active duty so that he could reply to Armin. The reports in question were in their HQ building and as far as he knew, it was 8AM on his day off. He really didn’t want to have to go back just yet – especially when Mikasa had just come back from a long, lonely few weeks away with Annie god knows where.  
“Can’t you just drop them by for me? I’m already at Mikasa’s.” he wheedled. Armin might be nice enough to have pity on him just this once.  
It seemed not.  
“Sorry, no can do. He asked for you specifically.” That bright, cheery reply unsettled him. It sounded like Armin was up to something but without going back to HQ to get it out of him in person he was never going to find out – and that defeated the point of wanting to stay exactly where he was, sprawled and comfy.  
“Alright, alright. I’m on my way.”  
  
It took about half an hour to fly to HQ, but it would have taken longer if he’d tried to walk. Or drive – not that anyone drove much in NYC unless they absolutely had to if they’d been in the city as long as he had. It was less hassle to walk or use the subway. The building was an unassuming tower block on the outside, easily blending into the cityscape around it as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. On the inside it was a fortress, anything demonic meeting layers or wards and a vast amount of traps, not to mention a small population of nephilim who were armed to the teeth at all times as a general rule, even if they were living as civilians rather than hunting. Everything their garrison did was centred in and co-ordinated from that one building – training, active hunting, deep cover operations, R &D, and all the administrative tomfoolery that went into co-ordinating all of the above.  
  
Eren headed straight in through one of the side doors, his head down and his hands shoved in the pockets of his black jeans as he watched other people milling around. He was going to have to try and avoid running into Armin this time, as much as he loved spending time with his best friend, because he had the sneaking suspicion that he was trying to get him involved in something without giving him any warning. He’d heard that cheerful tone and seen the deliberate lack of information before, and knowing Armin he wouldn’t like it when he found out the details either.  
  
The files were left in a manila folder on the desk of the small cubicle he’d been assigned for completing the paperwork for the hunts that he and Jean did. He and Armin had hunted for a while before a spot on Hanji’s research team had come up, and Armin had jumped at the chance – not that Eren could blame him. The blond was much happier and much more productive behind the scenes and he and Jean could hunt well enough together that they’d lasted out despite their frequent arguments, and he’d never had to worry about being partnered with someone else.  
  
It turned out that demon killing produced a surprising amount of paperwork, much to Eren’s displeasure. Kills and exorcisms had to be documented so they could keep a  running count of exactly how many demons they were killing in a given area, and how many innocent lives were being lost in the process, and honestly he hated doing that part the most. There was nothing quite like seeing your failures recorded on paper in black and white – not that he and Jean failed that often.  
  
Sighing, he scooped the folder up close to his chest and turned to jog in the direction of the elevator, heading up to the floor where you could find all the respective office dwellings of the higher ranking nephilim who were running the show.  
  
He found it odd that it was Hanji who called out for him to come in when he knocked, given that it was Erwin’s office, the solid wood door name-plated in silver lettering above a frosted glass pane, but went in anyway. It wasn’t that uncommon of an occurrence for her to be camped out in the Commander’s office talking his ear off about something, after all, and she was always peppier than usual in the mornings.  
  
His eyes were initially on the floor as he entered, his words trailing to shocked silence as he was met with an eyeful of the fact that not only was Erwin completely absent from the scene, Hanji had been joined by the one person who it seemed most of his curiosity was fixed on lately. The one person he hadn’t ever wanted to be in quite this close quarters with.  
“I brought the Louisiana.. reports…” he wondered if it would be entirely too undignified to squeak as his face went red, his gaze flicking between their faces for a grand total of maybe five seconds before dropping back to the floor as he fidgeted in the doorway. The Lance Corporal made a rather too enthralling view stretched out across the desk as he was, back arched a little as he leant back to see whatever Hanji had been partway through indicating. It felt like his brain was being denied the blood it required so that it could travel south and he could do little but stand there and mentally curse. “Oh, sorry. Armin said the Commander asked for these? But he’s not here so… I guess I’ll come back later.” He managed to stutter out, making a tiny wave with the folder in his suddenly slightly sweaty fingers to indicate what he meant.  
  
Before his brain could die on him completely, he took the few steps forward and laid the folder down on the desk, willing himself not to look up as he backed off again. He didn't want to look up and see the cold disinterest he knew would be in Levi's gaze, although he could feel those hawkish grey eyes on him already.  
  
"And I did. Thank you, Eren, that was just in time." Erwin appeared, closing the door behind him and leaning on it with a subtle smirk over the back of Eren's head as his cool blue eyes met Hanji's, and Eren swallowed, knowing he was trapped in there for the moment, still not daring to so much as glance in Levi's direction. The only way he could see himself getting through this experience was by filtering him out.  
“Is that my coffee?”  
Erwin’s smile widened to a less wolfish one, his gaze redirecting to Levi as he replied.  
“Yes. Why are you so impatient?”  
“Because after all these years, you still don’t realise that you can’t just call me in at 8AM with mysterious requests.”  
Erwin moved away from the door, then, skirting around Eren to set the tray of three insulated coffee cups from the cafeteria on his desk. Levi twisted, leaning over to pick up and nurse his own cup. Eren’s eyes caught on the smooth slide of muscle under his shirt and he tried to ignore the way he couldn’t look away for a few seconds. Fishing out the coffee with his name scrawled on the side, Erwin patted Eren’s shoulder, observing him with an amused expression as he remained exactly where he was.  
  
He couldn’t exactly turn tail and run, even if he wanted to when it felt like at the very least Erwin and Hanji were watching him squirm with great amusement, analysing everything he said and did against some unknown variable or their own expectations for how they thought this meeting would go, and it was at that moment he realised that Erwin had set this up on purpose. He hadn’t needed the reports at all, he just wanted an excuse to force Eren and the Lance Corporal to interact for more than two sentences of polite but disjointed conversation at a time.  
  
“Thank you, Eren, that was rather punctual. You beat me back here.” Erwin was saying, but he was only half listening. Levi seemed to have turned his attention to the files, flipping the top one open to skim-read the contents of the first page. “Levi, that’s confidential.” The passive-aggressive statement was ignored as Levi’s eyes flicked upward, and then he turned another page, as if to say _‘so what?’_  
“You might want to stop reading, anyway, as you’re here to meet your new partner.” Eren stopped dead, vaguely aware of his heartbeat thudding in his ears. Did he mean _him?!_ No. He couldn’t be serious, surely. “Mr Jaeger here will be hunting with you for the foreseeable future.”  
_“Excuse me?”_ Eren bit his lip as Levi paused mid page turn, his icy tone clashing with Hanji’s amused giggle sounding from behind the desk. “The brat can’t even look at me, you expect me to hunt with _that_ as a base?”  
  
That was the point at which Eren felt his back hit the wall, metaphorically. He had an easy out – the Lance Corporal didn’t want to work with him either and Erwin couldn’t ignore them both, surely – and all he had to do was take it loudly enough. The diminutive nickname stirred his temper and his confidence, although he still didn’t look at Levi, turning to Erwin instead.  
“Ooh, a pet name already?” Hanji cooed, her mirth poorly disguised as she went from staring at Eren’s disquiet to Levi’s unamused expression. Eren only blushed harder at that and shook his head a little, trying to straighten out what he wanted to say in his head.  
“With all due respect, Commander, I would hunt much better beside someone a little more on my level. Jean and I have co-operated just fine on our missions so far.” He repressed the urge to wince almost as soon as he realised that although he hadn’t meant to come off as ungrateful or arrogant he probably had regardless, Erwin meeting his statement with an amused look and Hanji poorly concealing an outright guffaw behind the folder she’d picked up in an attempt to shield her expression from Levi’s view.  
  
There was a moment of silence only filled internally by a thread of curses as he finally locked eyes with Levi, the cold steel irises he found sizing him up making it feel like he had a sliver of ice in his chest. Booted feet met the floor with a quiet clatter as Levi slid, catlike, off the desk he’d been perched on and he settled all his concentration on Eren. Evidently he found him lacking.  
_“Leave.”_ he said, simple and scathing all at once. “Before you hurt yourself, tripping over your oh-so-mighty ‘level’.”  
“Play nice, Levi.” Erwin replied for him disapprovingly as Eren’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. He hadn’t meant for it to sound like that, the last thing he’d wanted to do was insult Levi and now he couldn’t think of a way to recover from his mistake. “You’ve both got no say in this, the paperwork’s already done and Jean has a new partner of his own already. It’s happening.”  
“Clearly Jaeger here considers me inferior, is there really any point? If he’s got such a better kill count then what have I got to teach him?” Levi replied, Eren shivering under the force of his glare and still trying to muster control of his vocal chords.  
Hanji smacked the shorter man’s arm playfully, leaning across the desk with a Cheshire Cat smile.  
“Eren, you don’t need to worry about hunting with him, this big softie’s all bark and no bite, honestly.” she replied, attempting to calm him down a little. It didn’t really help. Levi’s unimpressed expression made her amend her words at the last minute with a muted, “Well… not _too_ much bite anyway.”  
  
This wasn't anything like how he'd planned his first real meeting with the person he regarded a personal hero to go, but he couldn't say he was surprised. Somehow whenever he opened his mouth it seemed to just fuck things over, because he'd meant the exact opposite. Surely Levi would be better off hunting with someone who could actually keep up with him, that was all he had meant. All he had wanted to say.  
He didn’t need the extra observation and he was no longer a new face – he and Jean hadn’t been running into any Legion for a long time now, so apparently they’d made it past the point where they were considered attractive prospects for being fresh meat.  
  
Still, the fact that Levi had called him a brat was riling him. The Lance Corporal didn't even know him and yet he was already being judged, and that was the kind of thing he'd started fights over before. Not that he'd survive a fight with the older nephilim who had locked eyes with him. The sheer annoyance and dismissiveness in the grey eyes had struck him like a punch to the chest, but they remained in his mind even after he stubbornly removed his gaze again. The storm grey was a striking colour up-close, reflecting absolute determination and a quiet, unassuming sense of authority that almost made him feel safe despite the fact he was on edge and intensely annoyed at the fact that he got little to no say in what was certain to be a mistake.  
  
"I'm honoured to have the opportunity, but I shouldn't be hunting with him at all, Captain." he replied, giving Hanji a hesitant smile with resolutely avoiding even thinking about Levi. She might stand a chance of persuading Erwin if she took his side, so it was her he'd appeal to now. Perhaps if he could get himself off the hook and get out of here with as little interaction between them as possible, he could forget this had ever happened with his 'never meet your heroes' rule intact. "What I meant to say was that he's better off with someone who can keep up with him. I’m too new.”  
“Really? I’m right here, kid.” Eren didn’t look in his direction, knowing that this was the only way to keep his objectivity. If he spoke to Levi himself he was going to lock up again and he couldn’t argue his corner like that.  
“Eren,” Erwin appeared to ignore him completely as well, which he didn’t appear to take too kindly to, “that is exactly what his role is right now. I’d much rather the new recruits be paired with the Lance Corporal and you haven’t been, yet. Levi can keep you safe and oversee your development, and given your recent performance, I think that you will most definitely be able to keep up with our resident grump over there.”  
“Right here, Erwin.” Levi grit out, evidently annoyed at being ignored. “Right. Here.”  
“I know full well where you are, Rivaille.” Eren’s brow raised a little at Erwin’s overly pointed reply, noticing the ever increasing formality level between the two of them. It might be just banter given that Hanji didn’t seem to notice any tension between them if it existed, Eren hadn’t been around them long enough to know the difference. “So you either play nice with him, or you face… well, I’ll leave that to your imaginations.” Erwin laughed, then, the sound small but still failing to ease Eren’s inner tension at all.  
  
“Be ready in three days.” Eren glanced up to see that the voice had belonged to Levi. If he’d caved and was talking about dates and times, then it was likely that there was very little he could do against the whole thing right now. He felt sick. “You meet me here, at seven, on the roof. Don’t dare keep me waiting.”  
“Eren, you can go.”  
  
Erwin’s calm instruction made him nod absently, turning on his heel and putting the entire office behind him as fast as humanly possible.  
  
As it turned out three days went entirely too quickly for Eren’s liking, and that left him where he currently was: barely resisting the urge to pace around Mikasa’s room. Despite multiple attempts he hadn't been able to get Erwin to change his mind on the matter of assigning him and he'd had to fully abandon the idea that he could just keep Levi at arm’s length and keep a hold of his mental image of his hero, resigning himself to fate. Besides that, how were they going to track a possessed twenty-something through a city centre on a Saturday night without losing her again the moment the demon using her realised that it was being watched?  
  
Mikasa sat on her bed cross-legged, watching his progress into wearing a hole in her carpet with vague amusement.  
“Relax, Eren. If you keep getting this tense every time you go out to hunt with him it’s going to get the both of you into trouble.”  
“I know.” he sighed, flopping down beside her on the bed. “But I can’t help it. What if we lose her halfway through?”  
“You won’t.”  
“What if I disappoint him? What if one of us gets hurt?!”  
“You won’t, Eren. You’ve been doing this for long enough, and Lance Corporal Levi has his rank for a reason.” she replied, resting her hands on his shoulders and shaking lightly. “Let him lead and you’ll be fine. Just don’t run off anywhere and he won’t shout at you too much.”  
“Did you partner with him too or something?” The idea of Mikasa and Levi as a hunting pair was both terrifying and amusing at the same time. “Sounds like very specific advice.”  
“For a month or so, yeah. I lasted longer than most of the people who try.” she replied; a rare, quiet smile crossing her face. “He has a reputation for being… well, kind of hard to work with. It’s been Commander Erwin’s pet project to get him a permanent partner for as long as I’ve been here.”  
“So the Commander’s throwing me under the bus next, then?”  
“In a manner.” The wristwatch Eren had been eyeing every so often beeped twice, and he sucked in a breath. It was time to go and see what would happen. “You never know. Somehow I think a little Jaeger back-talk might be just what Levi needs to drag him from his comfort zone.”  
“Well, wish me luck.”  
  
She nodded, giving him one last tight squeeze before letting him get up and head for the door.  
“Go get yourself a higher kill count, rookie. You’re nowhere near catching me up yet.” she teased. His only reply to that was a shrug and a chuckle, the teen starting to head down the corridor to get out to her roof. He still wasn’t used to the idea of just being able to fly when he wanted to, his wings still more or less strange to him. “Stay safe, Eren.”  
“I will. Unless I run into Jean on my way out. Then I might have to tear a strip off him for selling me out like this.” he joked back. The likelihood of actually running into him was slim to none right now though, in reality. It was time to go and see what would happen.  
  
By the time Eren touched down at the co-ordinates he’d been given when their meeting was better co-ordinated after their run in at the office, the sun had started to set, dying the sky a picturesque mixture of gold and pink-ish red tones. This was his first time in any version of New Orleans, and he was thanking their luck that they weren’t here during Mardi Gras, or they’d have been screwed. There weren’t really as many skyscrapers around as in New York and as far as he knew they were ultimately headed for the French Quarter anyway. It was just lucky that he hadn't had to fly all the way, as the HQ's had some odd kind of ley line connections between them that they could use to easily transport themselves over long distances. He’d never bothered himself fully learning the details despite Armin finding the idea interesting – if they got him where he needed to go, that was good enough.  
  
The shorter form of his commanding officer and now hunting partner was as of yet nowhere to be seen on the rooftop, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t around.  
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” he muttered, surveying the setting sun as he recalled the physical description of the girl they had to track down. She had to be somewhere out in that mass of lights and people.  
  
Something on the air seemed to change over the course of a split second as he heard a rustle and span on his heel, snatching a knife blade from the air which at been aimed at his shoulder from somewhere to his left. He stared down at it in shock for a second before the emotion was replaced by a new one – anger.  
“The fuck was that?!”  
  
“Congratulations, kid. Your reflexes aren’t completely shit after all.”  
The sound of Levi’s voice calmed his shock as the white-winged nephilim touched down barely three feet in front of him, eyeing him with amusement. At least now he knew that hadn’t been an enemy, which had been his first presumption.  
  
“Do you always try to maim your partner on the first night, sir, or am I a special case?” The words were out of his mouth before he had even noticed that he was speaking, and the withering glare that he received made him take a step backward and try for an apologetic grin. Just from this much interaction he could understand why Mikasa had said that he was 'difficult' to work with, if their little run in back in Erwin's office hadn't been enough indication. Something like that probably would have totally unsettled Armin before they even started.  
“Special case is one word for you.” Levi replied, smirking. “I looked at your file, Eren Jaeger. No special talents but ‘hard work’. That makes you a lot more useful to me than most; if I can trust you to keep your mouth shut rather than bothering me with small talk.”  
  
No small talk suited Eren just fine. It meant he didn’t run the risk of stammering like an idiot in front of Heaven’s Strongest, and he was all for that.  
“You can trust me, sir.” He took a moment to breathe away his previous disturbance, eyes roving over the soft, white wings stretching from Levi’s back. The feathers looked beautiful in the red-gold light, and he knew instantly that he was going to be up hours trying to put them to paper satisfactorily now he'd actually seen them.. but the person attached to them was still frowning a little, and Eren briefly wondered how he looked when he actually smiled.  
“What are you staring for?” Levi’s voice made him jump a little again, dragging him back to the present. “Do I look like a fucking pin-up to you, brat?!”  
Eren smirked at that. If only he knew how long he’d tried to get a decent sketch of him done – none in pin up poses admittedly, but the sentiment was still amusing.  
“Not in the way you think, Corporal.”  
The nickname was still annoying the hell out of him, but he wasn't going to bring it up right now. Hopefully one hunt would be enough to prove how bad an idea this was.  
  
“Yes, well, keep your mind on the hunt.” Eren watched as he adjusted his harness, pulling it a little tighter across his chest, and stepped up to the edge of the roof. The increased height offered by the raised edge rustled his feathers, tugging at hems of the black leather jacket they both wore over the rest of their gear, the leather reinforced to help turn away knife blades if they could angle themselves properly. “You follow my lead, are we clear? No questions asked. Let’s just get this done so we can both go home, wherever that might be for you.”  
  
Eren nodded, noticing the sudden increase in the frown on Levi's face and wondering exactly what the cause was. He already seemed irritated enough, though, so he wasn’t going to ask. Probably that he'd been intently staring, trying to commit every last up-close detail to memory so that the next time he sketched he might actually turn out something he was happy with.  
"Follow you. No questions. Got it."  
  
He knew the moment they laid eyes on the demon proper he probably wasn't going to be able to resist the temptation to butcher it. Despite his cheerful exterior, Eren still found most of his thoughts and actions governed by the cold anger that had swept through him when he found out the truth, and he was healing his mother's death by destroying the bastards who took her life away. Even if he never encountered exactly the same demon that had ended both her life and his, he swore he'd kill every last demon he came across until his consuming need for vengeance was fulfilled.  
And it was a promise that he intended to keep, even if it was only to himself.  
  
His disposition changed almost instantly, the teen’s body loosening up and then coiling like a tensed spring before his wings fanned out behind him again, one stretching to its full span and then the other as he joined Levi on the edge of the building. He could do nothing but put his trust in his CO at this point and hope that when the urge to paint the floor with demon blood hit that Levi would just let him have his fun. Because otherwise he was going to go ignored, more than likely.  
  
“At least you can understand and listen.” Levi muttered, eye scanning the cityscape below them. Eren didn’t know what they were waiting for but he’d just agreed to follow Levi’s lead, so he waited regardless. “Once we see it, I’ll jump it and drag it out of sight. You follow after me.”  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
Ten minutes of tense, watchful silence later, the only warning he got was Levi’s head cocking slightly to one side, as intent as a hawk, and then he moved. Shifting his weight forward, he fell straight down in a dead drop off the side of the building in a move Eren had seen Jean do countless times, his white wings spreading at the last minute to get the maximum amount of forward speed and sheer thrust possible from the dive.  
  
The girl they’d been assigned to target didn’t even see him coming as she crossed the road. Thankfully the street was empty, and there was no-one but Eren to see him side-swipe the girl and pin her, his legs wrapping around her hips and his arms across her neck, wings beating against the air to maintain his own balance while he overthrew hers. The demon clawed at him and twisted, trying to throw him off, but within moments he had her on her knees, one hand in her hair to tug her head back and expose her throat, the other secured over her mouth to stop her calling out.  
  
Eren had spent all his time playing Levi's shadow watching him in complete silence, adrenaline levels spiralling and his focus completely intent on the girl that they'd been asked to target. He watched Levi take her down and keep her immobile, an interested smirk crossing his face, and then dropped down in front of her.  
“Hurry up and kill it, Jaeger.”  
  
His inbuilt sense for demonic auras was a lot weaker than Levi’s, so he had no idea whether she was still human or whether the human soul within her body had been totally corrupted and lost already - but it was easy enough to check. He wasn't about to just slit her throat without checking whether or not that cost them extra time. He still wanted to save her.  
Pulling a switchblade from his belt he flipped it open in a skilful flick of the wrist, head tilted to the side and green eyes fixed intently on his prey. No point going for a bigger blade than that, it would be overkill.  
  
It was like the cheerful teenager who had stumbled into the office with a handful of folders and stuttered like an idiot had been completely replaced with another person, the Eren in the alleyway closing in with a lopsided smirk and deadened eyes appearing more of a predatory, consummate killer than any outside observer would have thought possible. His other hand settled on the girl's forehead and the demon within her snarled unintelligibly, clearly not having achieved good enough control over its vessel to form sensible words to convey its aggression as it struggled against Levi's hold.  
  
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica-oh, already gone." he cut himself off from the quick and dirty exorcism ritual that every recruit memorised as part of training as the demon thrashed again in response, resisting the urge to sigh even as another pang of anger ripped at him. Their human was already lost, something Levi had apparently been able to pick up on just by touch given his skill level was a lot higher, and his fury was clearly visible in his expression despite the loss starting to bite at him before he'd even made the kill, his voice hollow aside from the quiet hatred that rang through it. "Requiscat in pace."  
  
Suddenly the thrashing girl wasn't a girl at all in his mind - just a monster, and he didn't hesitate any further, watching intently as a shriek left the empty hunk of meat as he pulled his hand back and then drove the blade into her chest, not moving to avoid the resultant blood issuing out of the wound as he punctured the girl's heart and getting hit in the face with the coppery spray of thick red liquid, still warm despite the fact that the girl's body probably died in terms of brain function hours ago. Once was not enough and he didn't blink as the knife went in again, deeper, twisting as the body around the now bloody red hole in the girl's chest jerked. If he kept going to he was going to carve her heart out, but he didn't care. His breathing was still heavy, shuddering, and his grin a little unnerving given the blood covering his front - but it wasn't like he noticed.  
Killing these bastard things was when he felt most alive, now.  
  
"Lesson one, don't paint with the blood. Far from hygienic.” Eren blinked once or twice as he listened to the words, the surprise that Levi was more perturbed at the idea of getting blood on himself than he was about Eren's bloodlust showing loud and clear. The first time he did anything like that while Armin was around, he scared the crap out of him, and it took promising he'd let Armin make the kills before he'd go hunting with him again. “At least if you are going to satiate a bloodlust do so at the side so the blood does hit you."

There was a slight pause of them just sizing each other up again before Levi spoke again. It was odd to find someone who was able to watch him do that without judging him.  
"Call it in." He gestured with slightly bloody fingers to Eren's wrist, already not wearing his own communicator. "Hanji should reply instantly with either coordinates or goodnight."  
  
He nodded. He didn't give a damn that he was covered in the demon's blood, because it meant that the thing was dead - since it hadn't had the co-ordination to abandon the girl's body before Eren closed in. And he preferred knowing they were dead. It was something that he wasn't going to stop doing any time soon, his anger at the loss of their target not dissipating just because he'd killed the thing responsible for it.  
"Alright." his voice came out a little thick and more bitter than he would have liked, but there wasn't much he could do about it. A few moments of fiddling with his wrist later, he felt his heartbeat start to slow down again, casually observing the blood still dripping on the switchblade before he leant down and wiped it clean on the girl's gaudy pink tank top. The blood was making his skin sticky as it dried, but he didn't mind it. It meant he'd won, that he was still alive. And that was a good thing.  
The watch beeped with more co-ordinates, and he stretched his shoulders.  
  
"Got another set of co-ordinates from HQ." he replied, the grin that had been dominating his expression before returning to his face despite his shock. He'd been observing Levi close enough to already know that he wasn't wearing his own standard issue communicator - not that it mattered whether he did or not, really. There were other ways to access the same line of contact that didn't require it. "I'll get us there."  
  
He gave the girl on the floor one last glance, wanting to burn her face into his mind right along with his mothers. He'd failed her, but that didn't mean he would forget her - or the other innocent people they came across. They deserved to be remembered by someone, at least, even if they would become just another nameless body stumbled over by the police eventually. Then he moved, getting back in the air to give himself a better vantage point with which to find a way to get to the spot Hanji had given them co-ordinates for after checking for it with a single quick application of his smartphone's in built mapping app. By the they got there the demon might be more in the general area than at the point itself, but they would find it quite easily, he'd bet.  
  
The next place they ended up in was an alleyway with a busy street at one end, and Eren didn’t have any idea where they were but evidently Levi knew the area. He didn’t look remotely happy about Hanji sending them here so he guessed the space was too public for his liking.  
“Sure this is right?” Eren nodded, and Levi looked away from him and down the street, keeping a watchful eye for people walking around while Eren used the pause to fish out the packet of wipes he habitually kept in one of the inside pockets of his coat to deal with the blood on his face a little better. “How many?”  
“Two plus civilians, according to the message.” he replied, assuming Levi was asking about their number of targets.  
“How many?”  
“She didn’t say.”  
“We need to get it to the park.”

The place across the road was iron fenced and looked big enough to get lost in if his depth perception was up to scratch. Good enough for what they were here to do, and Levi seemed to know it given the slightly more content look on his otherwise impassive face.  
  
“Assist this time, see if you can learn as quickly as you can kill.” Eren nodded again at the instruction, and Levi went back to looking for their target. He was the one directing the hunt, so he was the one getting all the estimates for when the demon was going to show up from Hanji, who was their handler for the night. Eren was just getting co-ordinates. “Keep yourself hidden as much as you can, and that includes your wings. The second someone sees all that blood, they won’t ask questions first.” Levi unfastened his jacket as he spoke, allowing the two swords he kept attached to his sides to hang a bit more freely so that he could actually draw them if he needed to. “Take the one on the left. _Don’t_ kill it.” he gave the word what Eren considered rather unnecessary emphasis as their targets came into view, both armed.  
“Sir?”  
“Disarm it, keep the gun, drag it to the tree, and _don’t kill it._ Show me you can have restraint. You need it in this job.”  
  
Ah. Restraint. The one thing he always had a problem with – incase Levi hadn’t already worked that out.  
  
Before he could voice the sentiment Levi was gone, sliding over the hood of a car to limit the sound of his footsteps with his wings completely hidden again. Eren would have loved to watch him at this, but he didn’t have time – he had his own demon to take down and the guy the thing was nesting in was built like a goddamn house.  
“Oi, hellspawn.” That seemed to distract it well enough, the burly casing for the demon not really hiding its poor grasp of the body it was residing in. It didn’t take Eren more than a few seconds to pin the guy to the floor using one of Mikasa’s tricks, his thighs secured around the demon’s throat with crushing pressure as his hands covered the man’s mouth and nose, his weight twisting and his wings giving him enough pressure to topple his victim over and make him drop the handgun he’d been about to raise in an effort to dislodge him.  
  
It wasn’t that demons needed to breathe, per se, but there was only so long they could ride a dead body before it started to rot – and obviously it couldn’t blend in with the rest of humanity if it looked and smelled like the inside of a slaughterhouse. It was better to try and keep their chosen vessel alive for as long as they could even if they stamped down the soul inside.  
  
He looked up when he heard a shot fired, Levi’s demon evidently having chosen to kill it’s vessel and flee the scene rather than face dying with it, and the noise was attracting people. Not hesitating to take advantage of the fact that Eren had ensured the demon he was folded around had its throat bared, the Lance Corporal made short work of slicing its neck, effectively sidestepping the arterial spray that ensued, and then gestured towards the tree cover.  
“We need to get out of sight. Now. No wings.” Eren nodded, his black-blue wings receding from sight as they turned to head towards the trees.  
**_“No!”_**  
“Damn it.”  
  
A female voice interrupted them from behind and Levi dropped the thin wire in his hands, pulling one his guns from the harness attached to his chest.  
“Levi?”  
“Behind me.” Eren hesitated at the instruction as he watched the girl now approaching the spot where they’d left the bodies of the two dead bodies left in their wake, evidently having been dating one of them and in a state of complete distress. “What’d I say about no questions?!” Levi snapped, and he quickly moved to obey, putting Levi between the human and himself, although he wasn’t sure what great damage one human could do him right now, although he was ever mindful about the adage of wrath and scorned women. “We’re not done.”  
“My.. my babe.. How the hell could you?!” Somehow the hairs at the back of Eren’s neck stood on end as he watched her get closer, seeing Levi’s fingers twitch, he knew something was wrong. Something the human girl screeching at them wasn’t going to notice in time. He bit his lip, muscles coiling as he tried to decide whether to stay put or try and move the girl away when it was already too late, black smoke coiling around her. The new arrival pulled her closer to it, grabbing her throat and snarling at them over her shoulder. She screamed, taken off guard, and Levi’s face twitched in disgust.  
  
“Nephs need learnt place.” There was a click as the demon rasped the words out, trying to talk. It must be quite an old one if it was starting to get the hang of higher brain functions, and Eren’s lip curled into a sneer. “Pesky Nephs stay out business.”  
Well, he supposed it got the message across, even he had the urge to tell the thing to shut up and stop butchering attempts to talk. Trying to talk meant it was distracted from killing.  
“God I hate higher brain function.” Levi groused quietly, and Eren found that he had to agree. Then he raised his voice to address the demon, who was fully capable of understanding them even if it couldn’t quite articulate itself back. “Let her go, I won’t shoot you.”  
“Gotta shoot. Gotta kill.” the demon replied in a garbled rush, hauling the girl higher and tightening its grip on her neck. She began to splutter, her arms clawing and her legs jerking under her own weight as she struggled to breathe. Eren knew what it meant and no doubt Levi did too – her energy was food, and why would it let a helpless victim go? Not to mention if it was going to get spiteful the simple fact that she’d die meant it won, and they lost, even if they killed it afterward.  
“Let her the _fuck_ go.” Levi repeated, evidently having to make a split second decision and trying to give it one last chance. The demon smirked at them and ignored him, and split seconds later, gun shots heralded the end of Levi’s patience with it. One for the demon, and then one for the girl as it tried to hop bodies into her.  
  
Eren remained stock still in shock as he looked down at the innocent girl’s body, only just keeping up the co-ordination not to be pulled over as Levi tugged him towards the tree cover and up one of the trunks he judged large enough to support their weight. They could already hear shouting and footsteps and they needed to be out of sight so that they could take advantage of the next good moment to leave.  
  
Anger was flaring through him again for a different reason entirely, because what the fuck made him think he had the right to decide whether she had to die? What was the point in doing this if he was just going to kill the people they were trying to save right alongside the goddamn demons?!  
  
Clearly he wasn't the person that Eren had thought he was - or rather, the Lance Corporal had other sides to him that he just hadn't wanted to think were there before. Still, it disheartened him a little. He hadn't expected Levi to not even try further than that small attempt at persuasion that it was no surprise the demon had ignored. Well, more fool him for thinking Levi might be different, he supposed.  
  
After a moment or two, Eren felt Levi tap him and then point to his back, motioning that it was okay for him to have his wings showing – the branches of the tree they were in were well enough shaded that his could be easily camouflaged and he’d need more time than Levi to concentrate on being flight-ready. Levi’s stark, pure white wing colour would definitely give them away, on the other hand.  
  
The two of them didn't have to remain out of sight for long before they could retreat to a safe distance and then eventually back almost to HQ proper, Eren struggling to put his annoyance into words for most of the trip and almost thinking better of it altogether. Hanji was waiting for them to call this one in, but he wasn't even sure he wanted to because how the fuck had they failed to save someone twice in one night?! Admittedly they couldn’t have done much about the first person… but the rest they might have if they’d handled it differently. This was more than enough to prove his point that he should never have been assigned to Levi, and he didn't know whether he was disappointed or not.   
  
He called the hunt in but momentarily ignored the response he got as he surveyed the darkened skyline, wrapping his arms around himself. It had been one hell of a job to show the restraint that he had, but he wouldn't have to worry about it because he would make sure that even if he went back to a desk job he wasn't going to hunt with Levi again. He’d had his mental landscape scarred enough to last him a while.  
"We should go home." he muttered, sighing. "Twice is enough to fail in one night." Technically neither of their hunts had been failures given that all the angels wanted them to do was exterminate the demons responsible, but not saving the humans meant that wasn't how Eren saw them.  
“Home sounds good.” Levi replied, rolling his shoulders. “But twice? I’d consider both of those a success, kid. We got out alive didn’t we?” Eren nipped his tongue, holding back what he really wanted to say. He’d said he’d follow Levi’s orders tonight and he still wanted to do that. “We got out and we knocked off four demons. That’s four demons less to cause havoc in the world.”  
  
Eren rolled his eyes as he walked a few steps behind, fiddling with his watch to ensure that Hanji was kept up to speed with the fact they were coming back. His point of contact was usually Armin but he supposed that she liked to keep a closer eye on Levi and that was why he'd been told to report in to her instead tonight.  
"We got out but none of the people we're supposed to be protecting did." he replied, wondering why he was even having to actively remind Levi of the point. Hadn't he been saving people for a lot longer? Didn't this bother him at all?  
  
He didn't look like it, not that Eren could make out much of his expression from the back aside from trying to gauge his body language. It bothered him to think that Levi didn't care about the fact that they had lost innocent people. He couldn't get his head around the idea that he was the only one of them who saw something wrong with it, who equated it to a loss.  
"And I'm not a  _kid_." He was also entirely through biting his lip. "Doesn't it bother you that we couldn't save anyone? That you shot that girl while looking her in the face without even trying to save her? So yes,  _sir_ , we failed."   
  
Eren scowled and then blinked owlishly after the words left him in a tone that was almost scolding, because it was hardly his place. He was the subordinate here, and had he really just all but raised his voice at  _Lance Corporal Levi_ , of all superiors to mouth off at?! What the hell was he thinking?!

Levi’s steps came to a halt, and Eren almost flinched as he slowly turned to face him, staring him down with the same cold and unimpressed expression that he’d been met with in the office when he’d angered him the first time.  
“Eren, how long have you been hunting?” he asked calmly, making the younger nephilim feel a little bit more ridiculous for being so annoyed with his own quietness.  
“A few months…” Eren trailed off. He’d been here almost a year but he’d only actively been hunting for just less than half that time and he wasn’t an idiot, he knew he must seem like a complete rookie in Levi’s eyes.  
“Do you know how long I have been doing this?”  
Eren shook his head, confused and still angry but now finding that met with Levi’s inner calm his frustration had nowhere to go that would make him feel valid in having it. “Too long to count, but if you want a rough estimate, think near the fifty decade mark, give or take a year.” Eren stalled at that. It was a _long_ time, even when time had no objective meaning for anyone of their race. No wonder he called him ‘kid’. "Don't ever even _dare_ imply that what just happened didn't bother me. You can't save everyone, Eren, and the second you start trying to, you're going to lose more people than you intend to. I learnt that the hard way, so get it through that thick fucking skull of yours now, stop acting like the child you clearly are, and _grow up_. If you can't, then you may as well march right back to Hanji and have her throw you back in the cycle, because you’re going to get people killed with the kind of thinking that makes you take unnecessary risks. You won’t last here if you can't understand that concept."  
  
Despite the better half of his brain thinking he should probably bow gracefully out given that Levi had a lot more experience than him, his anger refused to let him. He didn't even really know why he was so frustrated, but fuck it. He got the impression that people didn't talk back to Levi very often and he was about to be the first person in a while. If it got him a kick in the teeth, then so be it.  
  
"Perhaps it's just that you've lasted too long." he snapped, fiery determination blazing behind those sea green eyes now as he stared Levi down, a complete contrast to his first interaction with the man. "Just because you've given up, don't expect or ask me to. Because I won't stop trying on the advice of someone who experience has made jaded." Saving the people who were victims of the demons they hunted was just part of the job to him now - and how was he supposed to avenge his parents if he ignored the lives that were being ruined as a direct result of his inaction? You couldn’t cherry pick which innocents you let die and which you helped if you were meant to help everyone.  
  
He shrugged, his tense shoulders loosening as he pulled his eyes away from Levi's and turned his attention back to the sky.  
"I already tried to tell Hanji that this was a mistake. I'll try and hunt with someone more _childish_  next time. Goodnight, Corporal." His voice was shaking with poorly concealed anger as he turned his back, intent on walking away. He just wanted to go home and perhaps find a way to burn this anger out that wasn't going to involve breaking some poor unwitting furniture or staying up half the night burning through another sketchpad.  
"Just know that if you walking away from me, doesn't mean that you are going to be hunting with anyone else. You're stuck with me, Eren. Better get used to it." Levi sounded more tired than angry, now, even though his voice had risen somewhat before, but Eren was done with the whole thing. And he could think of one person that would actually want to listen to him rant right now.


	4. Clarity - 4: Morning After.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, me again. I was in London on friday so I couldn't post this until tonight. Chapter 5 will be along later at the normal update time. Enjoy breakfast ;) More ereri interaction and lots of sass this time around.
> 
> Music for this chapter is FOB's 'Thanks for the memories'.  
> As usual, find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. Currently Firrie and I are beta-ing each other's chapters so please excuse any mistakes.  
> Levi's POV can be found here - http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813 - Firrie's chapters and mine are going to start not necessarily beginning and ending at the same place all the time from about now, so her chapter 4 had more in it than mine did. 5 should be about the same.

The abruptness of them both calling it a night didn't seem to really sink in until he got back home to the apartment block. From there it was only a few flights of stairs more than his usual floor (he never used the lifts to go up if he could avoid it; going up that many steps a day helped him spend less time in the gym) to get to Jean's.

Primarily he wanted to demand why his former partner had given him up so quickly. He knew it wasn't the existing dynamic between the two of them, but it was entirely likely that Jean had caved to pressure from Erwin or Hanji. If he'd dug his heels in as well then it wasn't as likely that this whole exercise in futility and frustration could have been avoided.   
  
If anything, Eren only felt more vindicated than ever in the idea that shouldn't have interacted with Levi at all. If his one shining example, his one thing to aim for was proved nothing but smoke and mirrors then what did he have left? He was quickly learning that the satisfaction he got from killing demons on their hunts, the small increment of revenge from it, wasn't really helping him at all in the long run.

It was like dealing with a drug addiction. Every time he killed a demon the adrenaline rush and euphoria that came from the success was less and less effective. Soon, he wondered whether he'd feel it at all, and he knew if he wanted it back he was going to have to go for something bigger and deadlier. How long was it going to be until he had to face down a Legion to get the same feeling? Levi was right, he wasn't going to last long if he carried on the way he had been. But… Levi had been right all along, and lasting for a long time had truthfully never been part of his plans. He would be all too happy to be back in the cycle of reincarnations, it wasn’t like he was getting anything positive out of being here so far.

The chance to leave the boundaries of NYC for the hunt should have been something that he was happy about - evidently as long as Levi was with him, he was free to go farther afield than he and Jean were alone. He'd been so distracted by the realities of the job that hunting in New Orleans hadn't been any different to hunting on the same streets he'd been treading for almost a year. There was always a chance that there'd be other opportunities in the future, though, and he could easily comfort himself with that.

"Lance Corporal Levi didn't wear you out then, Jaeger?" Eren blinked, barely noticing that his feet had carried him all the way to Jean's without him really noticing due to a wandering mind and at some point he'd knocked. It felt like he was always getting lost in his thoughts unless he was beating something bloody lately.   
"Nah." He tried to sound casual but he didn't quite manage it if Jean's single raised eyebrow, judgemental, gave anything away. Ignoring it Eren chose to make himself at home on Jean's sofa instead. It would have been a nice place to sleep if he hadn't been occupying the other teen's bed more often than not these days.   
"Body count?" Jean asked, smirking as he dangled a glass of what smelt like more rum than coke in front of his face.   
"Four." Eren replied, accepting the glass readily. "Well, three and some innocent girlfriend in the wrong place at the wrong time. He shot her rather than let the last demon we were tracing take her over."   
"Seems fair."

Eren choked on his drink in his haste to reply. Why was it that Jean could lecture him about the importance of saving people but if Levi did it, it suddenly became okay?!   
"An innocent person had their life taken tonight, Jean. How is that fair?" he asked heatedly. "That could have been you or me who just happened to get in the way once upon a time, would it still be fair then?"  
 "So basically you're disappointed because the person you looked up to is actually human and not the perfect image you thought he was?" Jean summed it up perfectly, even if he didn’t want to admit it, even if he’d _known_ that this was what was going to happen. He just never imagined that the disparity between his expectation and the reality would be quite so large.  
“Alright, I know I sound shitty if you put it like that..” he grumbled, avoiding Jean’s eyes as he downed his coke and was for once entirely grateful for the obscene amount of rum in it. The burn in his throat felt good.  
“You’re damn right you sound shitty.” Jean fired back. “It’s not fair to him and it’s not fair to you either. You _already know_ unrealistic expectations will get you killed.”  
“What if I don’t care that it does?” he snapped, standing up suddenly and setting the empty glass down with a clatter. “What if I’d rather not last that long?”  
This time, he drank his rum straight, ignoring the sigh Jean heaved as he settled back down the sofa beside him.  
“Shut the fuck up with that right now, you selfish prick.” Eren smiled coldly, inclining his  glass in acceptance of the sentiment and waiting bitterly for Jean to continue tearing a strip off him. Despite their disagreements, he knew Jean wouldn’t lie to him or try to make things better than they were. The guy called a spade a spade, and Eren had to respect him for that if not for anything else. “How do you think Mikasa and Armin would feel without you?”  
“Alright, I get your point.” he bit out, sighing. “Maybe it’s the rum talking.” Yes, that seemed like a good way to get out of it and backtrack. Blame it on the alcohol.  
“Nice try, Eren,” Jean replied, smirking now. “but we both know _that’s_ not been nearly enough sauce to get you speaking in tongues.”  
“I could do with that much, I think.”  
  
\-----  
  
Eren woke the next morning with his head a comfortable haze of tiredness and what he suspected to be a light hangover, blinking his eyes open to stare at a ceiling he recognised as not being his with the sound of a shower going in the background. His watch on the bedside table was periodically emitting beeps, but he ignored it, turning over and burying his face back into the pillow.  
  
The bed was still warm and his muscles felt like overheated rubber, everywhere from lower back to upper thighs keenly aching. This was Jean's bed, he was intimately familiar with it by now, and he rolled his eyes, letting out a frustrated whine against the pillow. Why did he never learn his fucking lesson?! Why could he not just blow off steam some way that didn't involve letting his frenemy get him tipsy and pin him to a mattress as he bitched about his run in with Levi last night?  
"What is it, Eren?" Jean was grinning like the dork that he was leaning against the door with a towel around his waist while he dried off his hair with another, and Eren glared venomously at him over the pillow snuggled in his arms, failing to look remotely threatening because the picture it painted was just too adorable. "Didn't you make enough of those kinds of sounds last night?"  
"Fuck you, Kirschtein." he shot back, sighing and burying his face back into the pillow and trying to ignore Jean's derisive laughter as the watch beeped pointedly at him again. He gave in, picking it up and reading the message from Levi displaying on the front, none too politely requesting his presence at HQ, and then tossed it straight back onto the flat surface with a sound of disgust. "And fuck him, too. I'm not going there again."  
  
His first point of call was most definitely _not_ anything to do with Levi, although having to go back to HQ that day was inevitable. That one hunt was enough to convince him that they weren’t going to be able to be productive. He was better the way he was. He just hadn’t been able to convince Jean of that fact last night.  
  
An impatient knock on the door sounded through the apartment, and Eren sighed, taking it as his cue to move. Standing, he spend thirty seconds hopping around Jean’s bedroom pulling on the ripped black skinny jeans he’d been wearing last night in order to get across to the front door. It was just his goddamn luck that the person on the other side of it when he pulled it open was the last one he wanted to see, especially with suspiciously mussed hair and a few fresh bite marks marring his neck and collarbones that he'd forgotten to throw his shirt on to conceal in his haste to get to the door.  
  
The instantly recognisable and by now familiar figure of the Lance Corporal, clearly impatient for something, stood waiting on the other side of the door. He had half a mind to just close it again now and walk away, save them both the trouble.  
Then Jean opened his mouth at the worst possible moment.  
  
"Fuck who? Lance Corporal Levi?" Jean laughed, clearly audible from the bedroom as he slowly followed in Eren's wake, knowing Levi's reputation all too well. "It sounded like you wanted to last night."  
His casual words made Eren flush bright red again and wince, because although Jean had no idea that Levi could hear every word, the experience was entirely mortifying for him.  
"Shut the fuck up, Kirsch-neigh. Don't make me come back there and end you." he hissed, turning an interesting shade of crimson at Levi's raised eyebrow.  
  
"Where would you find someone to channel the frustration of your unrequited love into if you did that?" Jean's voice was coming closer, and for once Eren was going to keep silent and watch the train-wreck unfold. "You practically hero-worshipped the guy for months, Eren, don't tell me you don't want to ride him from here to-- _holy fuck!"_  Jean went bright red and slapped a hand over his mouth as he saw Levi at the door over Eren's shoulder, wishing the ground would swallow him whole right then and there judging from the look on his face.  
  
"I can assure you that in that situation, the brat wouldn't be doing any riding of the sort." Levi’s eyes flicked between the two of them with a look of amusement before he ignored Jean entirely and homed in on Eren, seeming to take in the full impact of the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt. "As much of a show as it is, get some clothes on. Breakfast has our name on it."  
  
Eren had been quietly snickering as he watched Jean essentially dig himself a hole the depth of the Mariana trench, but being called 'a show' made his blush deepen again. He hadn't intended to be anywhere near Levi without a shirt on if he could help it and now here he was. It wasn't that Jean was wrong, per se, but he wasn't going to justify it with a response. Especially when he was still frustrated with how the hunt had gone and still had no intention of ever doing it again.  
"Please offer Hanji my apologies, sir." he replied, polite but firm. "But I don't think so."  
  
Then he slammed the door, turning away and starting to head back across the room. He had no intention of letting Levi think he could just show up and drag him out whenever he felt like it because they had done one hunt together. It seemed that the only way to make him understand that was to dig in his heels right from the start. Levi would probably be able to hear Jean's panicked screech from through the door as he smirked at him, watching him run his hands through his hair.  
"Eren what the fuck?! Do you actually have a death wish?!"  
"Bitch, I might do." he joked. The sad thing was it was half true.  
He was still stood in the way of the door when Jean reopened it to apologise.  
“Lance Corporal, sir.”   
“Save it, Kirschtein, I’m seriously not in any mood.” Levi could be heard replying from his position in the doorway. “Jaeger, I’m not here on behalf of her. I’m here on behalf of me.” Eren paused at that, curious as to what could possibly have brought Levi here if he wasn’t coming just to reclaim some wayward charge. “All I wanted to do is take you for breakfast. No demons. But if you’d prefer to screw your friend here all morning, feel free to decline my offer properly without being such a goddamn _child.”_  
  
Eren rocked on his heels as he listened, his wings twitching against his back as they reflected his unsettled state of mind before was actually able to spend a minute of concentration to hide them from sight again. He couldn’t think why on earth after their little shout-off last night the Lance Corporal would turn up and offer to have breakfast with him.  
“Breakfast, Eren?” Jean was chuckling, now, looking over his shoulder with an expression that suggested that he wouldn’t mind tagging along with them just to watch Eren crash and burn in front of the person he’d spent so long looking up to.  
  
The words had Eren rolling his eyes again and heading back in the direction of the bedroom to pull his shirt and coat back on and slip back into his shoes. He was already trying not to think about his night with Jean. Nights with no strings attached didn't always feel so good in the morning. Might as well swallow down his bitterness and find out what the hell the older nephilim thought he was upto with this. Plus if they weren’t hunting then he was all too happy to learn what he could from the man, since despite their arguments, he still seemed a relatively fair person and undoubtedly a good leader for the right people. It just turned out that he wasn’t one of those people right now. He could pretend well enough, though. For now.  
  
"If there's no demons involved, then that makes everything different, sir." he replied, previous sullenness gone suspiciously quickly as his puppy-like demeanour returned. He was out the door with a quick wave to Jean within minutes. "So.. breakfast?"  
  
Levi gave a small nod, turning on his heel and leading the way down and out of the building. Eren never thought he’d end up leaving in the wake of the Lance Corporal.  
"There's a restaurant I like just down this way." He crossed the empty road, heading down the small street.  
  
The two of them walked side by side in silence, Eren half a step behind as he took the quiet as an opportunity to keep thinking. It wasn’t that long before they came across a small, unfamiliar café. The staff seemed to know Levi which made him think that at the very least he and Hanji must spend a lot of time in the place. They were placed in a secluded spot towards the back, a small booth that placed them out of the way of most of the foot traffic in the place. Convenient, given what they probably had to talk about.  
A menu each was left behind, but Levi seemed to know what he wanted already as his eyes gravitated to a certain spot and then flicked away again. Annie had taught him a few things that weren’t combat based that he didn’t think anyone else knew she’d mastered.  
  
The cafe was a quaint little place, not somewhere he'd really think to eat at given that he stuck to his teenaged habits of grabbing junk food as and when he needed it, but he'd picked his meal within a few moments of glancing at the menu. Pancakes and bacon were a classic and one of the few breakfast foods he could actually cook himself. He was a disaster in the kitchen, always had been.  
  
His mind wasn't on food right now though - instead he was pawing around in the bag he'd slung over his shoulders on the way out of Jean's, having needed something to carry his sketchbook and the alcohol with on his way there last night after that disastrous hunt made him like the idea of a night in with shitty TV and Jean's equally bad company.  
  
The sight of Levi's slightly flushed cheeks and the slightly too large size of the jacket were an image absolutely dying to be put down onto paper and he wasn't going to miss the chance. Levi looked quite absorbed in his menu from where he was sat so he didn't think he'd get caught as he tugged out a pencil and started to make a rough sketch, glancing up and then away again every so often in an effort not to draw too much attention. His menu was still open so as long as Levi was looking down his sketchbook wasn't too obvious given that it was rested on his lap rather than laid out on the table. If not for the fact that his phone was at the bottom of his bag and Eren wasn't the type to be checking it every ten minutes it might even look like he was messing around on that rather than making detailed sketches of the nephilim across the table.  
  
Eventually Levi flagged down a waitress and placed an order quick enough for Eren to know that it was almost second nature, what he always ordered here. He seemed troubled, still, but if he was being completely honest with himself so was he, so he couldn’t fault Levi there. Eventually he got around to ordering his pancakes and somewhere between there and their drinks arriving Levi had begun to outright frown, his thanks hushed as he pulled his teacup closer and set about making it up how he liked it. Eren returned his attention to the sketch after an initial cursory sip of his coffee.  
“So, Kirschtein, really? I’d have thought he wouldn’t be your type.” Levi said, his words filtering through the clinking of a spoon as he strained his teabag and then put it down against the saucer.  
  
Eren was mostly concentrated on his sketch, eyes flicking back up to Levi and down again every so often as his cup of coffee was left to go cold. He wanted to get the details of this moment down before Levi started doing something else.  
  
And luckily, he did, abandoning the rough sketch to be improved and redone later as he flicked over his page. Eventually his pancakes were set down and he reached up to shuffle the menu to the side with his free hand to clear some space, not looking up, his attention firmly taken by his drawing. Since he'd actually been able to engage in this hobby again without feeling guilty that he wasn't studying, he'd been filling up sketchbooks like there was no tomorrow. There was so much that human eyes didn’t see that nephilim got chance to, and he wanted to get it all down.  
  
The sketch was Levi again, but this time it was a scene more reminiscent of last night, and Eren was frowning because no matter how much he wanted it to it didn't look right without the pure white wings. So he added them in, ignoring his cooling food in favour of drawing them flaring out from Levi's shoulders as the page was filled with a cityscape and a rooftop, around the edges of his sketch of the short, grumpy nephilim. Jean was correct in his assertion that Eren had held Levi up as a goal, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was attracted to him.  
  
Not to mention he'd only been proven right on the 'don't meet your heroes' front, because the Levi sat across from him was different to the Lance Corporal staring blankly, almost thoughtfully up at him from the page. And he knew that. He was having to tear down his previous thoughts and re-evaluate them almost overnight. And that was probably what had driven him to Jean in the first place.  
  
"He isn't." he replied, very obviously distracted given his distant tone as his concentration remained on his drawing. "We argue all the damn time, about the stupidest things. But all that tension has to go somewhere when we're drinking, I guess. And he reminds me of being a college student again, because he was too."  
Eren didn't really notice that he was essentially spilling his innermost thoughts to someone who was more or less a stranger, and not only that, but a stranger he'd not exactly been on good terms with last night.

“Eren, I didn’t bring you here to order food and then not eat it.”  
The brunet glanced up then, slightly startled from his position of focus, and realised that he had food he could be eating. There was also the fact that he didn’t really want Levi to see the sketchbook and realise just how right Jean was about him being the devoted fan type, he’d rather he think that it was a phone he was diverting himself with.  
  
Instead he busied himself with his pancakes on the logic that if he was eating then Levi had nothing to complain about and wouldn’t try to investigate. Levi’s next movement was so quick, the man leaning over the table to deftly snatch up the sketchbook by the corner of it still hanging out on the seat under his bag, that he didn’t have time to do much other than blink out the aftermath.  
“You know, I’m not really that boring.”  
“Hey, give that back.” Eren complained, a little bit jittery because if Levi decided to open it and flip through it… a slow smirk curled across Levi’s face for the first time in a while and it made Eren’s breath hitch with something that wasn’t entirely nervousness which he quickly smothered.  
“If you can practically ignore me for this,” he turned and actually looked at the pages he’d flicked open, words slowing as he realised exactly what and who he was looking at. “then I.. can… look.”  
  
There was a pause as Levi flicked through page after page of abandoned or imperfect sketches of himself, Eren going through a whole colour palate of red in the meantime and eventually hiding his eyes behind a hand while he continued to eat. Of all the people to flick through his sketchbook (as he’d been particularly careful to keep this one away from Jean) of course it would have to be the object of his drawings.  
“He wasn’t lying then.”  
  
Eren remained silent. It did cross his mind that this was probably karma come to bite his ass for laughing at Jean earlier and he would really love the floor to open up and eat him right now.  
“I’m flattered kid but had you even met me at this point?” Levi turned the sketchbook and Eren glanced at it, instantly recognising one of his earlier attempts. He’d got a lot better since then and he was half tempted to set the damn thing on fire.  
“No… not officially.”  
“Well,” Levi returned his attention to the sketchbook and Eren to his pancakes, slowly flipping further through the pages. “Here I am, never had a stalker in all my days and suddenly I’m eating breakfast with one. Should I be worried?”  
  
His tone was uncharacteristically playful and Eren didn’t know how to deal with it on top of the smirk, shoving another forkful of pancakes in his mouth. Especially since the smirk that was being sent his way made him want to whimper into his pancakes. Levi being creeped out, he could handle. But the problem was he looked more amused than annoyed, and he didn't know how to feel about that other than oddly hot under the collar.  
"M'not a stalker." he muttered. If it weren't for the pancakes he would have got up and left, not able to deal with the idea of Levi seeing his sketches. But he couldn't say no to the idea of breakfast, especially when he hadn't eaten last night in favour of going to Jean's.  
"Can't exactly help what takes my interest when I draw, sir." He hadn't meant for that to sound as cheeky as it did, but he was still preoccupied with wolfing down his breakfast. "Besides, my other sketchbooks have other people in." Just barely. But Levi didn't need to know that. "Perhaps if you weren't so photogenic I wouldn't have kept drawing you." The words were out of his mouth before his brain could really click on to how creepy they might sound, and if possible his blush went a shade darker when it did. "Ugh. Now I sound even more like a stalker. I should stop talking."  
  
Levi’s smirk only widened at that and he placed the sketchbook down out of reach, continuing to flick through it as he went back to his own food. Eren couldn’t grab it and bolt and he couldn’t help but feel that Levi had done that on purpose.  
“Well I am deeply sorry for being so ‘photogenic’, though you are the first to say that.” he replied, busying himself with his full english breakfast as he reached the most recent sketches. “Why are my wings not coloured on the ones you have used colours for?”  
Finally, _finally_ , he offered the book back, and Eren spared no time in reclaiming it, the damage having already been done by this point and the only option being to try to mediate it. “You don’t have to answer, I’m just curious.”  
  
He found himself surprised again by the fact that Levi wasn't a little more worried than the amused smirk he'd received. It took a few more mouthfuls of pancakes before he could work himself up to replying. To say he'd spent so much time being a closet fan he'd only actually seen Levi once aside from these last few days.  
  
"They aren't coloured because I never knew what colour they were. The first and only time I saw you it was in passing. I was just some brand new trainee and you were with Commander Erwin." he replied, remembering the event quite well. He'd completely lost his focus once his curiosity was kicked up. "You never so much as looked at us, but why would you?" his quiet, fond chuckle that made it clear just how much he valued the memory. "What with being 'Heavens Strongest' and everything. I haven't been able to get one done that I'm happy with yet, it's probably why I nearly filled the sketchbook. I'm not usually as creepy as that makes me seem, I swear."  
“Oh, I believe you.” Levi replied. “And as for not looking at any of you, don’t think any of you are special. I distance myself from everyone.” If he weren’t so preoccupied Eren would have frowned slightly at that. The idea made him somewhat sad – Levi shouldn’t be distancing himself and shunning people, he should be _happy_. But it wasn’t Eren’s place to judge, ultimately. He didn’t know the first thing about Levi’s past or his private life and didn’t intend to stick around long enough to find out either. “At least now you know they’re white.”  
  
Eren nodded at that, pushing his empty plate away as he pulled the sketchbook back towards him and picked up exactly where he'd left off. He didn't miss the frown, and it made him wonder exactly what had happened to make the apparently unflappable Lance Corporal so obviously discontented. Then he reminded himself sharply that he was supposed to be annoyed and therefore not give a damn. Hadn't he been saying fuck the guy to Jean not even an hour ago?  
  
"Good to know." he replied. "Now I might actually get one finished. Then hopefully I can move on to something else." A smirk overtook his own expression then as he picked his coffee back up. "Maybe I'll creep Jean out next time, the smug bastard."  
He could already picture the annoyed look on Jean's face and it was a highly amusing thought.

“Would you like anything else, or…?”   
"No, nothing else to do here." Eren replied, tucking his sketchbook into his bag as the waitress came over with the bill. He wasn't expecting Levi to pay with his card, but wasn't about to let that fact stop him from contributing towards his pancakes.  
  
Smirking playfully, he went for his wallet anyway, pulling a $10 note out and wondering if he dared before deciding that the rest of the world had already made up its mind that he had a death wish, so why not.  
"That covers me." he announced, tucking the note in Levi's pocket. He figured after this he should be able to successfully avoid having any more contact with him, so why not. "Now you can get something nice." It was clearly meant to be a joke in order to cover the fact that he wasn't going to let Levi pay for him and preventing that becoming something else they could argue over, already accepting the idea that he was probably going to get glared at for it at the very least.  
  
He wasn’t disappointed as Levi looked down at his jacket pocket and then glared at him with eyes that looked like they could freeze his blood.  
“Please, I’m going to need a little more than $10 for that.” he shot back, using his card to pay once he’d flagged down the waitress that had served them. Eren took the time to get his jacket back on and make sure everything was back in his bag so that he was ready to walk out when he heard Levi say ‘let’s go’.  
  
Eren followed him out, still messing with his jacket a little as he headed out while Levi held the door for him, leaving it to swing shut in their wake as they strolled off at a gentle pace down the street.  
“Are you heading back to your boyfriend’s?”  
"Boyfriend?! Jean? How does the odd few nights of angry sex count as that?!"  
"Good to know you can handle it rough, kid."  
  
Eren had fallen into step beside him as they headed away from the cafe and nearly tripped over his feet, going bright red again. Because he didn't really want to dig himself a grave by starting to think about Levi in that context, or any context aside from a purely professional one. Otherwise the next time he stole a glance at a sketchbook page he might actually get mental scars.  
  
That didn't mean he planned on being outdone, though. What was the harm if he was going to make sure this was the last time they talked? It wasn't so bad being in Levi's company as long as they weren't having ideological conflicts over hunts, either.  
"Jean wouldn't know what rough was if it bit him." he replied cheekily, trying to downplay the effect that the other teen had clearly had on him given that Levi had already got an eyeful of the marks that had been left behind in Eren’s skin when he opened the door shirtless. "I can take a lot worse."   
"I'm sure _‘a lot worse'_ would see you on your knees at some point, kid."  
  
If there had been a point before at which it struck him that this was dangerously close to flirting, he must have ignored it because the idea was only just hitting him now. That by no means equated to wanting to stop, though. They seemed to have an instant, easy level of chemistry between them when they were actually getting on, and Eren didn’t want to lose that right now.  
"Oh really?" He didn't mind too much where they went because he could always persuade Jean to let him back in for Mario Kart and more gossiping on the goings on that he'd missed over the last week he'd spent with Mikasa. "I'm quite used to that already."  
  
He was probably better off leaving out any further details than that or whatever was happing definitely would be straying into the flirting territory and there really wasn't any excuse for it given that it was still the morning and they were both stone cold sober.  
“Yes, you do look like the type to be used to kneeling.” Levi slid a sidelong glance at him as they crossed the road and Eren had to take a minute to just breathe, his blush fierce again because he hadn’t expected Levi to be quite that direct. He definitely hadn’t expected his brain to take the idea and run with it either. Or try, before it was abruptly cut off and the thought of Levi replacing Jean in his little pattern of drunken trysts was promptly strangled. He wasn’t going there. Levi could be sassy and attractive all he liked, but he was his CO and they couldn’t even be cohesive at hunting never mind sex and _he’d said he wasn’t going there so leave that thought alone._  
  
He'd been asking for a reply like that given his previous sass, but if he'd already got this far there wasn't much point stopping now. The apartment block where he lived wasn't that far away if memory served, too.  
"If that's an offer." he replied, completely straight faced despite the fact he was more or less joking and didn't expect anything to come of it in the slightest. More alcohol was required for that kind of bravery... or severe lapse of judgement.  
  
They got back to Jean's apartment building being within sight before he was really able to drag up the courage to look at Levi again. Their flirty banter aside, the Lance Corporal still looked distracted over something and he didn't want to impose too much.  
"See where that gets you, kid."  
  
He blinked a few times before the words really sank in, then smirked again. The nickname was still as annoying as fuck but right now he didn't care.  
"Most of the time I prefer not being able to." he replied simply, his tone only a little shy of teasing. "Using my imagination tends to end better."  
  
"Clearly you haven't found someone where your imagination isn't required." Levi’s smirk was still present as he came to a stop next to Eren and glanced up at the apartment block. “I need to be at HQ to sort out a few things. See you around Jaeger." He gave him a glance up and down before starting to move away. Eren nodded silently and waved at Levi’s turned back, watching until he turned the corner and disappeared from sight.  
  
His heart was racing and his cheeks were still warm, for some inane reason. Frowning, he hitched his bag strap a little higher onto his shoulder and glanced to either side before unfurling his wings and taking off, a few odd bits of litter scattering down the street at the force generated by the feathered limbs beating at the air with a quiet _whoomph_ as his feet left the pavement and his body was smoothly hurled upward by the motion. He needed to decompress from this in a whole different way from last night before he went in to work, and he also needed to come up with a way to get himself reassigned from Levi to another person without making Hanji aware of it so that was where his mind was turned as he entered the building from the rooftop and hopped into one of the lifts to work his way down to his floor, sighing to himself.  
It was going to be a long day.  



	5. Clarity - 5: Discord.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble in paradise... Well, it was going to happen sooner or later. ;)  
> Sorry this is a week late but I've got a LOT of stuff happening right now IRL, not all of it good. Hopefully I'll try and catch up over the coming week and get two chapters out but we'll have to see.
> 
> Music for this chapter is 'Bruises and Bitemarks' by Good With Grenades!  
> As usual, find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. Currently Firrie and I are beta-ing each other's chapters so please excuse any mistakes. Levi's POV can be found here - http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813

It wasn't until about halfway through the afternoon that Eren had the sudden brainwave of how he was going to get himself out of having to partner with Levi again. The problem wasn't really that he hadn't got on with the man during the time he'd spent with him, rather the opposite in fact, it was just that he already knew they were no good for each other when it came to hunting much in the same way that he was convinced that the sky was blue and pineapple was not a good choice for pizza topping.  
  
He threw the controller in his hands onto the sofa at his side as Jean beat him on Mario Kart for the tenth time (and yet the asshat was still cheering like it was some great fucking achievement) and went for his phone, hitting up a certain timid blond boy that he was sure was about to be an absolute life saver.  
"Hey, Armin, could you do me a favour?"  
"That depends on the kind of favour. Is it going to get me dragged up in front of a tribunal if I get caught?" he could tell by the amusement in the soft voice on the other end of the line that Armin was only joking, but he smirked anyway.  
"Nah, you're too good to get caught, right?" he replied. "I need you to hack into the assignment system and make sure I'm partnered with you for my next few hunts. It got messed with and we're no good together. You wouldn't want me to get hurt, yeah? Being my best friend and all?"  
"You should know that doesn't work on me by now, Eren." The sigh down the line already made Eren chuckle, because he knew he'd won then and there.  
"Alright. I'll buy you all the fruit smoothies you like, even if that juice bar you keep dragging me to is goddamn expensive. Promise."  
"Sure." Well that was almost too easy. "You go back to kicking Jean's ass, I'll make sure it's done. You are at Jean's again, right?"  
"You know me too well..."  
  
It was way past lunch by the time Eren entered HQ himself carrying a coffee and a large fruit smoothie for Armin. He was more or less confident that the blond had been able to sort out making sure he wasn't assigned to Levi anymore, he was ridiculously good at dealing with anything that required the use of technology while Eren was passable with them at best.  
  
Armin turned in his chair, nudging a button on his headset to turn it down, as he walked in and plonked the smoothie down on his desk. The sight of the perfectly organised desk made him chuckle - his own cubicle looked like a small bomb had gone off, stacks of paper everywhere and post-it notes in odd places - but Armin's was always spotless.  
"Here. I believe I promised you a smoothie. Have you taken any time off for lunch yet?"  
"Thanks." Armin's smile was small but worth every minute of queuing and the exorbitant prices in his favourite juice bar. "And no. It's not like I have enough time for a lunch break, Eren."  
"So does this mean I have to kidnap you and drag you to the cafeteria to get you to eat?" he replied, grinning playfully as he set his hands on Armin's shoulders and felt him start a little at the sudden touch given that his attention was still being taken by his work, mostly.  
"Lunch too?" Armin quipped, still grinning nonetheless. "Anyone would think you're trying to butter me up for something again."  
"I kind of might be.. maybe.." He got the sneaking suspicion that Armin hadn't actually looked who he'd been assigned to before he made his changes, because he'd expected to hear more protest than this. "You did kind of reassign me away from Lance Corporal Levi, and I don't think he'll be all that amused. So yeah. There's that." he replied, ruffling one hand through his hair.  
  
The grin dropped from Armin's face, replaced with a look that was half surprised, half scandalised, and then the blond shrugged and he set to work devouring the smoothie.  
"If they ever track this back to me and start pressuring for information, I'm going to sing like a nightingale, I hope you understand." the blond replied, scooping up his wallet to head to the cafeteria with Eren anyway. "It's your hide the Lance Corporal will be after in the end, not mine. I take no responsibility for this."  
Somehow he didn't think that would be a situation he could flirt his way out of, because using Armin to change the rotas was a rather underhanded way of doing it and he didn't think Levi would be too impressed.  
But what the hell, it couldn't get any worse than the last hunt.  
  
"So how'd breakfast go?"  
Eren glanced up from his sketchbook, pencil tucked behind his ear for a few moments as Armin brought their food over. It wasn't very often he was able to coax the blond down to the cafeteria because he'd usually already packed himself something to eat in his cubicle. To be honest he was such a work addict sometimes Eren thought he may as well just move in and have done. It wasn't like he'd have to sleep at his desk.  
"Breakfast was a lot less awkward than I thought it was going to be.. until he decided to help himself to my sketchbook, anyway." Eren replied, glancing at the quick sketch he'd done of Levi with his coffee earlier in the day. Then he frowned, glancing back up. "Wait.. how did you know about that if you've been working all day? I hadn't even told you yet."  
  
Armin went a shade paler and then laughed and waved him off, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket to wave it in Eren's direction.  
"Jean told me all about it. That and how you thoroughly set him up when the Lance Corporal turned up at the door." he replied, grinning slyly. "So did you confess your slavish, undying hero-worship for him over the tea and toast?"  
  
Now it was Eren's turn to choke, flushing red for what felt like the hundredth time that day because Jean hadn't stopped teasing him either once he got back.  
"Armin, what the fuck? Not you too.." he sighed, shaking his head. "No, I did not. And that ship has most certainly sailed. Doesn't the fact I don't want to hunt with him again prove that?"  
Armin remained unconvinced, tapping his teaspoon against the side of his coffee cup as he finished stirring in his milk. All it took was a glance at Eren's sketchbook to prove him wrong because he was still drawing even as he tried to demolish a tuna sandwich at the same time.  
"Really? Then tell me what you're drawing, Eren." he replied, his tone suddenly serious as he leant back slightly. "Just because you found out he's got more human sides than you thought doesn't mean you've suddenly lost all interest."  
"What do you mean?" he glanced down again, having been more or less distracted by his thoughts, and then sighed, because he couldn't say anything against Armin's point now.  
  
The whole fresh page was taken up by what was starting to look like a rather more promising sketch of a red-tiled, walled city. Levi was staring up at him from the page again, dressed in a uniform that was quite similar to the ones they usually wore but decidedly different all the same, the jacket slightly cropped to make space for the '3DMG' Mikasa had told him about and the harness having a whole other purpose than holding weapons down the front, instead keeping the gas canisters and rectangular boxes full of spare blades in place. Only he couldn't help adding in Levi's wings exactly as he remembered from the previous night, flaring out to catch a breeze as the figure on the page coiled ready to be airborne again. Except he already knew that one wing would be a dark blue to match the wing symbols on the rest of the uniform. Somehow it wouldn't seem right otherwise. Damn, there were times when he hated how much Mikasa's world caught his interest.  
  
"Alright, fine, I'm still drawing him. But all that means is I haven’t finished a sketch I'm happy with yet. I did the same for you and Mikasa and everyone else.." he argued, burying his guilty look in his sandwich because they both knew that this wasn't the same at all and he was refusing to admit to it, only just coming to terms with the idea.  
  
It wasn't all that long before they split off again, Eren heading back to his desk as slowly as he could manage after bidding Armin a goodbye (or rather a 'see you later' given that he was confident they were hunting partners again) and putting the cafeteria behind him. He honestly didn't know what his thoughts were on Levi anymore now that the initial shock had well and truly had enough time to blow over.  
  
He wasn't surprised that Levi seemed to have given up trying to save everyone, he figured how long he'd been a nephilim had something to do with that. But the thought saddened him because if Levi had eventually caved to the stresses of the job then how was he going to avoid doing it if he survived long enough? How was he going to keep hold of his optimism after hundreds of years of being reminded how ugly and cruel the race he was trying to save could actually be? Before he started wondering whether humanity was really worth dying to try to save?  
  
He buried the thoughts in paperwork well enough, tucking his sketchbook carefully back into his bag and studiously avoiding looking at the clock because he knew that if he started watching the minutes tick by the afternoon was going to drag on. If Armin could actually enjoy the work he did then he didn't see why he couldn't either - he just had to find a silver lining to filling in reports and summarising all the data he was collecting during the process of hunting. It was a lot more interesting when he was researching or actually out surveying likely infestation spots, but this would have to do for now. Maybe a good hunt with his blond friend later was just what he needed to brush off these fatalist thought patterns, because Armin never really failed to cheer him up.  
  
Aside from being puzzled as to why the hell the co-ordinates had been in what looked like the middle of precisely nowhere, he was more or less passive at the challenge present by the looming forest. This wasn't the ideal place to hunt given that low-hanging tree branches were a constant inconvenience but he could manage. And where had Armin got to? He usually beat him to it.  
  
"You think it'd be that easy to get rid of me, kid? You need to up your game if you want off this train."  
  
Eren whipped around in the direction the sound of Levi's voice had originated from, taking a few seconds to see him among the shaded trees given that his wings were hidden and he was wearing black.  
  
"Get rid of you? I thought the creepy sketchbook did that?" he replied, obviously downplaying his shock at the fact that it was Levi waiting for him rather than Armin and not about to mention what he'd got the blond to do earlier in the day unless Levi called him out on it a little more openly than that. His optimism that the night's hunt was going to be a stress reliever more or less died in that instant and he resisted the urge to sigh. Or turn around and go straight back home, which was also tempting. He didn't want another argument with the person he looked up to so much, especially not given how nice it had felt just sharing each other's company that morning.  
  
Levi smirked at him a little before pushing off the tree to get closer, seeming less authoritative than the previous night, which instantly left Eren suspicious.  
“How about we carry over from this morning and try not to step on each other’s toes?” Eren raised his eyebrows slightly, already knowing how likely that was going to be an efficient way to go about this. “I know we share different ideals on this, but maybe that’s why people were so insisted to keep us together, and that is something a little hacking isn't going to make go away.”  
  
Eren swallowed, not really sure what to say to that. He was more than tempted to just go home, and had they been in a city he might have done because on the very outside chance that Levi got hurt he could fake being human easily enough and just head to the local hospital. But being that this was a world away from that he didn't like the idea in the slightest. He was willing to bet they'd probably been given a hunt that wasn’t somewhere urban for precisely that reason, too.  
  
His hands were soon going over his own weapons making one last mental inventory check before he sighed and nodded. One more hunt and then he'd try and sort something out a little more permanent. He couldn't say he would be surprised if it turned out that Hanji had caught on to what Armin had done and just quietly rearranged it when she felt like it. At least it didn't look like Armin was going to be in any trouble for doing it, which was what he was primarily concerned about.  
"Alright." he replied, sighing as he turned away to survey the forest floor beneath them. God only knew what demons were doing out here. "But only this last time. Last night already proved my point that we're no good together even if Commander Erwin is looking for someone to pair you up with and seems to have decided that's me."  
  
The moment the words left him he knew they were going to be a lie - there was no such thing as 'this last time' and the fact that he hadn't just turned his back and left proved that no matter what he said he was going to keep coming back. He vaguely thought back to Mikasa and wondered where she'd headed out to this time. The idea of her hunting with Levi was still one that amused him - although he'd bet their equally deadly skill level and matching blank, unmoved expressions would scare the crap out of whatever their target was. His mind was wandering again and it was all Levi’s fault. He couldn’t afford to be like this in the middle of a hunt, either.  
  
“Compatibility can’t be decided on one night, Jaeger.” Eren grit his teeth a little as Levi smirked at him after speaking and then turned away a little, hand going to the hilt of his sword as he surveyed the immediate environment. They had no way of knowing how close to the threat their co-ordinates were, after all. “What’d the mushroom tell you about the hunt?”  
  
He hadn't said much except where it was, probably because he'd intended to be there to do all the explaining himself rather than having Levi turn up in his place. Which meant that they were more or less going into this blind except knowing that they had at least two targets.  
  
"We're out in the middle of nowhere because a couple of possessed hikers keep dragging people off to form a clique." Eren replied, re-reading the info he'd been given earlier on his phone after syncing it up with his watch. "Should be easy enough." He clicked the screen dark again and stowed the phone back in his pocket, his wings fluttering and reshuffling before folding against his back and then melting out of vision into his tattoos. "If we fly they're going to hear us a mile off."  
  
He sighed and then was off down the tree, easily sliding between the branches to reach the leaf-strewn floor below. The atmosphere was definitely more oppressive at floor level, unusually quiet in a way that set him on edge, and there was no clear signs of life among the trees - but he didn't need to be able to physically see anything. The demons would be giving off their usual black smoky aura and the more that were gathered the worse it got, so two or three would definitely be easier to track than one. They weren't that far away, and he already had the sword he usually kept strapped to his back drawn. He knew they'd pick a clearing and it would be much more of an open space than the alleyways he typically fought in. The darkness and availability of tree cover made a firearm a poor choice of weapon too.  
  
When they got there they found that the two hikers they'd been tipped off about must have been here for a while - their camp was a wreck, given that demons didn't need to eat and they didn't tend to take notice if their vessel starved until it started looking unpersonably thin and causing them problems with interacting with other humans. Eren headed straight on ahead without looking back because he could already hear hissing and sounds of a struggle. They had a teenage boy who didn't look much more than twelve pinned to the forest floor and from the look of the glowing demonic sigil carved into the tree they were about to drag a companion through with a meat suit already waiting.  
  
He whacked one of the hikers over the back of the head with the flat of the blade, hard enough to send her sprawling, and then caught the other man pinning the teen down with a punch to the face, his free hand going for his phone. He flicked through it for the audio file he was looking for hastily before handing it to the dazed teen on the floor.  
"Look after that for me." he offered the boy a brief smile, the pre-recorded exorcism coming blaring through the phone loud and clear acting as sufficient distraction for the two demons because it meant they couldn't get close to their intended victim again without having to keep their hands over their ears to block the words out.  
  
His attention was distracted for too long, however, and he felt an arm hook around his throat as the person behind him took a firm grip of one of his wings. The sudden yank made him drop the blade in his hand as his arms went up to the one tugging his head back and tucked tight around his neck, cutting his air supply. The grip on his wings was what floored him though, the jerking on his feathers intensely painful. Just because they weren't visible right now didn't mean that the demon behind him couldn't grab hold if it could make an educated guess as to where they were, and he was cursing that fact now as he tried to kick the guy in the shin, one hand moving from the arm around his neck to grab a knife with the aim of plunging it into his forearm. It might hurt like a bitch and he would be apologetic for doing it but if it meant not choking, he wasn't going to hesitate.  
  
The blinding pain vanished along with the gunshot that must have been from Levi as he felt the weight around his throat drop away, and Eren slipped forward onto his knees, coughing. It seemed like the kid was still alive, which was a bonus, and the other demon had been floored too - although by the time he got back to his feet and walked over to check, the body was already cold, so the man must have already been long dead.  
  
That only left the sigil in the tree, but Eren was quick to deal with that. It was a forest, after all, so a quick blaze to burn all traces off it off the bark wasn't going to be too much of a hassle, especially given that he could just blow it back out because they'd made the sigil small, probably in an effort to allow it to remain unnoticed when it wasn't activated. The idea of there being an operational mini hell-gate out here was not comforting. Especially when there was no way to tell how many others had been left behind as the hikers moved about through the forest.  
  
A few moments of scuffling around the wreck of the camp soon turned up a pressurised can of body spray and he used the lighter in his pocket to form a mini flamethrower, burning off the symbol and closing the connection. There was no way any more demons were getting through that way, at least. Besides that, his back was still absolutely killing him. They could put the kid under and get him back to the closest town with only a minor amount of hassle. Hopefully he'd think the whole thing was a nightmare - and if he didn't, it wasn't like there was anyone to tell who would actually believe him, so they were safe.  
  
Eren missed half of the interaction between Levi and their remaining companion, fiddling with his cell phone to locate the nearest town on google maps. They were going to need somewhere to leave this child, they couldn’t exactly take him with them. But when he looked up and watched he couldn't help the stupidly wide grin on his face. This was more like what he'd been expecting when he heard he'd been assigned to Levi, even though his reputation for being surly with everyone except perhaps Erwin and Hanji was as legendary as his kill count.  
  
A blush was creeping across his cheeks as he leant back against the tree, unable to help stopping because watching Levi with the kid was cute as fuck. He vaguely wondered how old Levi had been when he died, whether he'd had a family.. and then put the thoughts straight back out of his head, because he was never going to ask. Those kinds of things were far too personal and the idea of Levi having a wife and kids somewhere in his previous life seemed a bit incongruent, really.  
  
“Man, takes it out of you, doing that. Been a while.”  
  
He walked over and scooped the thin frame of the sleeping kid up, his wings unfolding and twitching experimentally as he tested his range of painless movement after the harsh tugging that the nerves in his back were still tingling from to thankfully find himself fully able to fly.  
"At least we got here in time."  
“Yeah,” Eren paused, allowing the boy to shift in his grip and get comfortable so that he could keep a secure grip on him as Levi watched. “Definitely a good thing we got here in time.”  
He felt a small flutter of warmth catch in his chest, then. It almost seemed like Levi wasn’t the person he’d written him off as at first at all when in this kind of situation.  
“Go, get him to the nearest town. I need to answer this idiot,” Levi instructed, messing with his phone too, evidently having received some kind of communication, “and I’ll call this in to Arlert. Sure he’ll have been told by now.” __  
  
Eren left the kid at the A &E of the local hospital, knowing that they'd ring the police given that he was a minor with no caretaker within sight and that it would all be taken care of by then. If his parents had escaped then they were more or less certain to be with the police right now too.  
  
He paused around the side of the large building, taking a few moments to smooth out and brush down the ruffled feathers that had been annoying him all the way there with his fingers before sighing. That was what he got for letting his guard down, he supposed. He was surprised, come to think of it, that he hadn't got a lecture for just heading on in without Levi and trusting him to catch up. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing you did if you were trying to work together.  
  
His watch flashed with new co-ordinates and by the time he got there he was a little out of breath, all the stressed nerves in his back and wing still aching as he landed with a quiet flump and crouched down onto his knees, stretching as his joints cracked. He figured that Levi had already acquainted himself with a few details and would have some semblance of a plain or goal in mind as he'd taken a little bit longer than expected to get there.  
"Dropped the kid off safe, sir." he informed him quietly. "Well, unless the hospital staff are going to murder him in his sleep."  
“Let’s hope they don’t.”  
  
There was a moment of mutual silence before Levi launched into the necessary explanation of what they were going into next – Armin had only sent him Levi’s co-ordinates, after all.  
  
“There’s three confirmed, maybe an extra one. Few floors down. Work as a  _team_ , this time, please.”  
  
Well, at least he said please, Eren supposed, but he wasn’t going to promise anything. He remained by Levi’s side until they reached the floor of the apartment complex that they were actually aiming for. Until he heard the yelling. Then, pretty much like second nature, he ticked straight into action.  
  
If he had looked back on the moment later he would realise that it was his fault for forgetting, not for the first time, that Levi didn’t act like Jean and wasn’t the same to partner with. Levi expected him to play back-up because he was the rookie and not concentrate on what he could do to solve the immediate problem himself rather than wait for direction.  
  
Right now, though, he didn’t, his body moving by instinct and urgency because of the choking fear that if he didn’t act then someone else was going to come home to find their loved one dead. He refused to let what happened to him happen again, even if it put him in danger – he could trust Levi to look out for himself, surely. He barely heard the older nephilim swear under his breath as he brushed past him and headed straight in the direction of the voice, barely heard him yelling to the one human they could save to clear out so they didn’t get hurt.  
  
He’d managed to take one down straight away when another swept past him and after the retreating man at a superhuman pace, and his attention redirected to it, vision tunnelling as he ignored the other two pursuing him in turn. He could take the bites and scratches and hands reaching for his neck if it meant buying the man time to keep running as he ground the face of the demon beneath him into the wooden flooring under his heel, a knife pushed beneath it’s shoulderblades as he managed to flip it over and stand on its torso to keep it down. He could deal with them one by one in a minute – there were only two more, and after a minute two became one and then none and he realised that Levi had caught up.  
  
A flare of black smoke issued from the half-rotten corpse the last demon left behind as it fled, clearly seeing no point sticking around when it was staring them down if it got back up, and then Levi turned on him.  
“Fuck, Eren.” He  stepped backward quickly, sheathing his weapons, and Eren followed suit. The anger-fog that had settled over him was cut through instantly by the sound of Levi speaking his name. “You need to act quicker than that. And what the fuck do you think  _team_  means?!”  
  
Gesturing for Eren to follow, Levi turned and headed back out of the building. No point checking for the runaway human they’d helped just now, Eren knew. Let him assume what he wanted – he was alive, and that was what mattered. Somehow, though, given that he could tell by the tension running through Levi’s body as they flew the now short distance back to HQ, his CO didn’t see it that way.  
So be it. Maybe this time he’d realise just how incompatible they were – maybe this time he’d send him back to the person he could actually work with. He wasn’t expecting miracles, though.  
  
“What the hell were you thinking?! Rushing in there the way that you did! You could have got yourself  _killed_.”  
  
Mikasa had been right when she said that Levi wasn't used to people standing up to him in Eren's estimation - and just because _he'd_ decided he wanted to try 'teamwork' didn't mean he was going to get it. Not just because he demanded it while still thinking of Eren as a little kid who needed scolding, as he evidently did. Not to mention the fact that his respect for Levi as someone he could take orders from had taken a steep drop after the last hunt and it wasn’t improving any now. If Levi wanted _that_ back, he’d have to earn it like anyone else.  
  
"That doesn't matter." Eren replied calmly, folding his arms. It was clear from his expression that as far as he was concerned he'd done nothing out of the ordinary or wrong. There was a reason Jean called him 'suicidal bastard' half the time, but he didn't suspect that the nickname was something Levi was actually aware of. Levi knew practically nothing of him that mattered if all he’d done was read his file.  
  
What did it matter if he died so long as he died protecting someone or doing the right thing? At least he'd take a few demons with him. Jean would have understood that, would have understood his actions. Not questioned the very thing Levi was now trying to chastise him for, and that stung twice as much considering that how well they’d got on this morning made him carry a sliver of hope that this would end differently. "And we're not a _team_ , sir. Partnering up does not equal teamwork." he replied, his tone still respectful despite his inner annoyance. "The only reason we aren't hunting individually is red tape, anyway."  
  
They were hunting together because Levi was a pet project of their Commander, and because Eren couldn’t say no to who he was assigned. That was all. This was no destined meeting of perfect partners like Hanji seemed to hope it was, like Mikasa seemed to think it held the potential to be – this was just trial and error. Mostly error.  
And now it seemed the failed experiment was coming to a head if not an end.  
  
“You are such a child. How can you not see the bigger picture here?" Levi’s anger was evident in his posture, but most of all in his wings, folded against his back now but twitching in irritation. If this had been about point-scoring it would have felt quite good to know he was able to affect the usually distant man so much.  
  
Eren snorted at his words, not really sure that he trusted his superior to see the bigger picture he was trying to preach about himself anymore. Calling him a child really lost its effectiveness as something to scold him with the first time, if it had ever had any.  
"I'm beginning to think I'm the only one who actually does. I already know where I'm going the next time I die, and I'm not scared of doing it anymore." he argued, shaking his head. "But the people we're all here to save don't have a clue. I'd love to know how caring about that makes me childish."  
  
“Because if you try and save everyone, not only are you going to get yourself killed because you don’t think about anything other than getting someone out, you’re going to get the person you’re hunting with killed. And that’s me right now. You need to grow up and not be so blind-sighted.”  
  
He had to take a few deep breaths and keep reminding himself that Levi didn’t know anything about him. Levi didn’t understand that by now, the people he hunted with usually knew about why he did what he did. The people he hunted with before had been his equals, people he could actually have a dialogue with instead of dancing around formalities that he couldn’t ignore. Levi’s life seemed so far removed from his own he doubted he’d be taken seriously anyway.  
  
"You can cope on your own, can't you? Having however many years of experience has its advantages, I'm sure. I'm not the person who doesn’t want to see these things from a human's point of view." he paused for a few seconds, half unsure he really wanted to have this argument. "The only reason we get this chance is to save them, and have you ever stopped to see how scared and desperate they always are? So yes, I'm going to go straight in. That's something that isn't going to stop. If I get hurt then I'll just have to deal with it. I can't guarantee anyone else's safety, and I don't expect whoever I'm working with to do that for me either. It's their decision whether to follow me or not."  
  
“You should want to guarantee someone their safety! It’s not a decision, it’s a fucking order. Whoever you are hunting with isn’t going to want any harm to come to you. What if Kirstein was with you? Or  _Arlert?!_  What then? You going to rush in guns blazing and hope they don’t follow you in to harm’s way?!”  
  
Eren's eyes narrowed at that, his fury burning deadly as Levi made the mistake of dragging his friends into this. Friends who had hunted with Eren a hell of a lot more, done training exercises with him. Friends who  _knew_  him, knew why he said and thought the things he did and were respectful enough to not bother preaching at him if they didn't agree, which was exactly what it felt he was seeing now.  
  
"With all due respect, they both know a lot more about me than you do. So yes, yes I would. It's never been a problem with Jean because he's exactly the damn same, and Armin doesn't hunt with me anyway, not really. Don't think bringing my friends into this is going to change anything."  
  
“Fuck me, Eren. It  _should_  change things. You aren’t just fighting for the humans here! Would you want the person you’re hunting with to die? To be killed? Because if keeping your own kind alive isn’t a priority, you shouldn’t be here. You don’t have any fucking right to still be breathing.”  
  
And that was it, really, he knew he didn't have the right. He didn't ask for this and there were times when he wished he hadn't accepted the angel's offer at all. It didn't matter that he had because he still wasn't able to save his family. His mother's blood was still on his hands and he refused to stand by and add more.   
  
"Aren't we all dead already? Isn't that the whole point? So no-one actually alive and still  _important_  has to die?" his voice shook as his gaze, which had been locked to Levi's, dropped to the floor, a shudder running through him as his mother's empty-eyed corpse stared back at him from a kitchen floor, drowned in red. Shaking the image away, he looked back up again. "If you think I don't have the right to still breathe then I suggest we either agree to disagree or you come here and do it yourself. Save everyone the trouble of having to put up with me being 'childish'.”  
  
He didn't care if Levi took him up on the offer right then and there - he hadn't cared what became of him since he realised he’d failed in the most vicious of ways. He’d let that demon change him and lost to it, become something that he wasn’t, in order to chase revenge without caring if it killed him. He wasn’t the kind of person his parents had raised him to be, he wasn’t the cheerful idealist his mother had loved anymore. So what did it matter? He’d lost and he didn’t see anything left of himself worth fighting to recover – now he was fighting to die.  
  
He couldn't say he was surprised when Levi tackled him to the floor, not even really putting up the struggle that he could have done because he was too angry and bothered by memories of his dead parents and the future would-be ghosts of his dead friends to be all that co-ordinated in a fight. That and he didn't want to hurt Levi. The idea that he might even try was ridiculous.  
  
“Don’t tempt me, because I fucking will,  _brat_. You’re here because you  _are_  important. You don’t just get an automatic pass in to the Nephilim clubhouse. You’re here because you did something to single you out in your last life. Don’t fucking waste a god sent  _second chance_.” Eren hissed as the knife between Levi's fingers pressed deeper into his flesh, starting to leave a red mark, and he almost wanted to goad him into going further. “Fucking grow up, and face this life with a pair of balls. Don’t throw it away just because you happen to have died a year ago.”  
  
What floored him was the fact that Levi was the first person to say something like that to him, to see through him so completely and actually draw attention to the fact. He'd lived the last nineteen years of his life (or really more like twenty now, he supposed) feeling always on the edge of things, always wondering if he was making a difference even when he wanted to. The words made him bite his lip and avert his gaze, teal eyes wet with tears that he refused to let any further outward, getting even more annoyed because where the fuck did this ridiculously attractive asshole get off thinking he could talk to him like that?  
  
His brain ground to a majestic fucking halt as it rewound back over that last thought. Because really? Attractive? What the hell was wrong with him thinking that his superior was attractive when he had him pinned to a roof with a knife to his throat and was pinning him to the floor. With his hips. This was a bad time for any of it.  
  
Still, there was one way to make him move. Grinning, he placed his hands on the floor and pressed slowly upward, forcing his skin more keenly into the knife's edge so that if Levi didn't remove it he really would start cutting into Eren's throat, his eyes locked onto Levi's in a definite challenge.  
  
"Do it." he muttered, his tone a low, dangerous growl, Eren’s cheeks flushed with the exertion, stuck halfway between anger and something else entirely. The tension and adrenaline rushing through him really weren't helping him keep a straight head anymore. And hopefully if he played this up, if he shoved hard enough, this would be the thing that drove Levi away for good.  He’d rather Levi be disgusted and warned off at this point than have his remaining ideals cracked further or be hampered by Levi’s attempts to teach him something he was confident he already knew. "I deserve it."  
  
He was taken off guard by Levi removing the knife instead of taking him up on it and leaving him with a painful reminder of his stupidity.  
“How can you not see that you  _don't_  deserve it? That you are worthy of being here.”   
There was a slight shift of weight and disturbance in the air as Levi’s wings moved, easily putting distance between them. “Either get with the program already, or leave. It’s like telling a brick wall that it’s worth it, and it’s doing a great job, but can’t take anything in.”  
  
Eren remained silent, watching as Levi walked away from him, and then leant his head back without resisting the urge to chuckle despite the fact that he was almost panting with anger. He hadn't thought it would be so easy to argue Levi down.. but he was glad it looked like it had worked. Then he didn't have to think about the look in those grey eyes as he'd told him he was worth something when he already knew he wasn't. Levi had his own motivations for saying that kind of thing and there was no reason to think he was being sincere. More likely that he just wanted Eren to stop arguing in favour of his own perspectives on things by shocking him into silence – much like Eren was trying to do to him, he supposed.  
  
"Hey Armin, I know they swopped us around but I'm pretty sure I just scared him off anyway." he spoke, still chuckling into his watch as he practically heard the blond on the other end of the line blow a gasket with a worried demand to know exactly what he'd said this time. Of course, he didn't expect Levi to have stuck around long enough to still be within earshot when he said the words, intending to remain where he was until the man had well and truly disappeared and then go home.  
  
He wasn’t prepared for the footsteps and Levi’s reappearance.  
“Eren hang up.” he barely had time to blink up at him in blank surprise before he changed target. “Arlert hang up, that’s an order.” Eren almost sighed as he heard a click of Armin terminating the open line between them but he couldn’t really blame him as it was – Armin actually wanted to stay here. He felt like he was contributing to something again and he was happy here. He wouldn’t want to jeopardise himself by disobeying an order while on record.  
  
“You really think that scared me off? I’m just done with your shit right now. Takes more than that to get rid of me. No one has managed it yet, but sure, you could try and be the first.” Levi’s voice still came from behind him, and Eren looked up at him leant against the door frame, slightly upside down, and then shrugged, using the weight generated by coiling his legs up and then shifting them down under him to get him back into a standing position, flipping over. The line on his throat still stung like a bitch, and he could feel Levi’s eyes on it, but he didn't care. He liked pain. Pain let him know he was still breathing.  
  
He stretched and then advanced on the shorter nephilim until he was pressing him into the wall, still smirking a little. He'd have to playfully tell Armin off for ditching him though - Levi wasn't the only one who was 'done' with the situation right now. He had already known that the night was going to end badly, so why stop there? Normally he'd be a stuttering mess at the idea of openly challenging Levi like this, but when he got angry it was like his brain just stopped hesitating. and that was exactly his point. It was no good being around him when he was angry.  
  
"Oh, I will." he replied, voice fiery but still low enough to sound dangerous. "Give it enough time and you'll give up. Incase you hadn't noticed I have a little problem with giving a shit about authority.. and it's not like you can scare the suicidal, is it?" he tilted his head, a cocky, lopsided smirk on his face as he posed the question, his face inches from Levi's as he blocked him from coming any further back outside with a hand either side of him and is body leant against the door frame.  
  
“Suicidal?” Eren nodded, not exactly proud of the term but forced to acknowledge the grain of truth behind the common nickname for him anyway, and Levi shot him a look, sheathing the knife back on his belt. “You really don’t think you deserve to be here do you?”  
  
The younger nephilim held his eye but remained silent, knowing that his lack of response should speak for itself.  
  
It seemed to only increase Levi’s anger, a quick, deft movement with one hand threading his grip into Eren’s hair to pull his head back and then push him down as he swept his leg against the back of Eren’s to drop him to his knees.  
“Shall I take that thought from you? Shall I take that chance out of your hands?”   
"If I remembered it on the other side I'm sure I'd be honoured to say yes.” Eren replied coolly. “And you already know I'm not lying. Scared yet?"  
“Not a chance. I’m more intrigued as to why you have such little self worth, actually.”   
"Then you'll have to stay that way. It's my problem, not yours."  
“You’re currently under my charge, which makes it my problem.”  
"Then find someone else,” Eren’s voice got a little more waspish as he tried to pull away, now, starting to get tired of arguing himself, “because we already know how it will end. I'm sure you're on good enough terms with our commander to get that kind of _special treatment."_  
  
The topic of Erwin seemed to be the thing that hit the pressure point, that went just that tiny microscopic amount too far. Levi’s eyes narrowed a fraction but Eren was distraction from the storm crackling behind his grey irises by the sharp blow to his face. It knocked him sideways and Levi let him go, one hand scraping the concrete roofing to stabilise himself as he coughed, a little shocked at the speed of the movement. Apparently that didn’t seem to be enough as he felt Levi’s foot connect with his side and then push him over onto his back, sprawled, with the tip of his boot.  
  
“You don’t fucking get to comment on him.” Levi’s weight hit Eren’s chest directly against his ribcage and Eren exhaled, his hands tightening around Levi’s ankle to try and push him off, or at least hold him still so it didn’t hurt so much, pinned underneath him. “You don’t fucking get to comment on  _anything_ , until you can listen and take note of someone telling you you are fucking worth it.”   
  
It was more harm than he'd come to through both hunts, but Eren took it without any complaint further than the brief sounds of the air being knocked out of him as he was forced to the floor and then pinned there, sick amusement starting to get up to the same level as his annoyance because he honestly didn't know how Levi had managed to drag this out of him.   
  
His complete lack of self worth was something he usually kept everything else from noticing, really only Mikasa and Armin had seen him like this and that was on his bad days and only because they took the time to sit and listen. He didn't give a damn about the pain or the fact that his ribs were bruising and he was probably going to have a black eye or find himself missing a tooth or something of the sort, and that lackadaisical attitude showed on his face as he glared up at Levi from his position on the floor, one hand wrapping around his ankle as he felt the other nephilim's boot press down above his heart to pin him.  
"You can lead a horse to water." Eren taunted, turning his head to the side to spit out a mouthful of blood before wiping his lips on his sleeve. "Trust me, I'd know." And of course by that he was referring to a certain long faced fuckbuddy of his rather than a literal horse. Levi could beat him till he was black and blue, it wasn't going to change a damn thing - although it was interesting that it was bringing up Erwin that had made him snap. "Did I touch a nerve, sir? Are you lecturing me for not thinking I'm good enough because you want to take your mind off the fact a certain someone doesn't think  _you_  are?"  
  
He was either going to get kicked so hard he blacked out or that was going to be the thing that made Levi just give up, he was sure of it - and it showed by the amused smirk on his face and the look in his eyes that fully suggested that he was saying this to test Levi's limits, test just how far he would go to put Eren in his place. And he suspected that he would be amused by every attempt.  
  
The weight on his chest increased for a moment as Levi briefly closed his eyes to seethe, and then his head hit the concrete underneath him with enough of a clunk to make his teeth rattle as Levi’s foot met his jaw and then the weight on his chest transferred directly to his throat.  
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”   
"The fact it got a reaction out of you was all I needed to know."  
The hand still in his hair yanked again, stretching Eren out and making him bend so that Levi could hold his eye and stare him down. Something about that stare made him shiver bone deep.  
  
He realised it was probably stress relief and an effort to stop himself just putting a bullet in him to spite him, but Eren almost wanted to laugh at the fact that Levi thought causing him more pain would change anything. He was used to pain, it was a constant in his world - and he'd already jokingly informed him that he liked it rough. So although he flinched at the sharp tugs holding him in place, his eyes didn't lose their amused burn as he was forced to keep staring up at Levi by the position he was held in.  
  
“You don’t, you can’t know. Because you don’t know what worth is. You’ve thrown it away from yourself and you’ve lost the meaning. You  _don’t_  know.”  
  
He couldn't really argue, because it was true that as far as he was concerned his life as a nephilim held no meaning at all further than what he could throw it away again for. Not right now anyway. The people who were friends with him had survived without him and would continue to do so once he was gone. And given that he remembered a lot of them he was more or less sure he'd see them all again on the next go around his cycle of reincarnations anyway.  
  
"And what? Are you going to  _educate_  me, Corporal?" he shot back, his tone dropping further to a decidedly more silky sound as he stopped trying to ignore the fact that okay, this was pretty fucking hot and it didn't happen all that often. You couldn't blame him for trying, even if he was probably about to get dropped in disgust.  
  
Levi leant forward, then, careful to avoid the blood making a trail down from Eren’s mouth as he held the teen still.  
“Do you want me to? I could teach you a thing or two, Jaeger, in that I have no doubt.”  
"Not in this context and maybe after a few drinks.”  
“Maybe not even then.” His voice, which had previously been silky enough to have the heated shivers running up and down Eren’s spine only worsen, froze as it dropped viciously. “If you don’t think you’re worth anything, why bother teaching you anything, in any context.”  
  
Then he pushed back, releasing Eren and taking his weight off him as he turned away, clearly well and truly done with the scene as it was as he dusted his hands off. “Run back to your fuck buddy, maybe he can tell you your worth and have you actually believe it.”  
Eren was left, then, to cough and shake with something that wasn’t just pain or anger.


	6. Clarity - 6: Slow Slip.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this should catch Eren's POV up to Levi's, more or less. This chapter has nearly been my death -_-' it took so long to get done. Thankfully things should get better for Eren from now on, even if he did do something naughty this chapter. <3
> 
> Music for this chapter is Let The Flames Begin, by Paramore.  
> As usual, find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. Currently Firrie and I are beta-ing each other's chapters(ish) so please excuse any mistakes. Levi's POV can be found here - http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM Usernames for later on in the chapter:  
> CAZH/Captain: Zoe, Hanji (Hanji)  
> LCRL/Lance Corporal: Rivaille, Levi (Eren)
> 
> For anyone interested I'm now also updating some Wings-verse Jean/Marco asides, as and when they occur to me - chapter 1 concurs with this chapter, I'm trying to get at least one JeanMarco centric drabble out per arc, hopefully more. Nephie Marco's past/how he died won't be discussed in Clarity, but it will probably be revealed over the course of the drabbles if anyone was interested. ;) Those two have just as much to share as Eren and Levi do really.

“Jaeger, what the _fuck_ did you do?!”  
  
Eren exhaled and scrunched his eyes up against the invading sunlight as he heard the sound of curtains being wrenched open. He was unsure how he’d ended up here and not at home, but the soft pastel blues and greys of the bedroom were definitely Armin’s. He was lucky that Armin put up with so much of his stupidity, he supposed.  
  
The exclamation was not particularly the first thing he wanted greeting him after half a night’s worth of sleep and the fact that he was still healing up after Levi had tried to effectively beat some sense into him. His ribs were still aching brutally, but they weren’t broken, and he was fairly sure if it weren’t for the fact that surface bruising didn’t last for more than a few hours when you were a nephilim he’d have a fairly blotchy face too. He was under no illusion as to whether or not he had _deserved_ it, though. He’d pushed too far last night – and somewhere along the line he was pretty sure he’d started flirting again. What for, christ only knew. It was like he couldn’t help himself when it came to being honest about his emotions when Levi was right in front of him, and the thought unsettled him more than he knew what to do with at that moment so he could do little else other than push it away.  
  
"Jean.. not today.. ugh.." he muttered, throwing his hands over his eyes to avoid getting hit in the face with mid-morning sun. Armin was stood by the door smiling apologetically, obviously guilty of letting him in, because contrary to Levi's parting words it was Armin that he had sought out to spill his frustrations to after their little altercation the previous night. Eren found that most of the time during that conversation he couldn’t really look at the way that Armin’s fingers clenched tight around his mug of hot chocolate as Eren stumbled through recounting what had been said about how he didn’t think he’d be missed.  
That was a new low of guilt, even for him, the way the petite blond’s face had twisted into a hurt little frown as he bit his tongue and seemed not to speak because he knew that Eren wouldn’t like what he said.  
  
"Yes, Eren,  _today_. You need to go back and apologise for whatever the fuck you did to piss Lance Corporal Levi off before he starts snapping necks."   
Eren stuck his tongue out, pulling the covers on Armin's bed over his face but still barely audible ranting into it.  
“No. Fuck him.” he muttered, fingers closing into fists around the covers. “Him and his adorable skills with kids and his tight ass.”  
He could almost hear the eye roll that accompanied Jean’s quiet sigh.  
“We've established you want to do that already, Eren." Jean replied. "Now get the fuck up and come show Hanji your battle scars."  
  
“Leave it, Jean.” Armin sighed, Eren’s position poked out just above the warm coverlets still covering him meaning he could see the short blonde shaking his head as he chivvied Jean towards the door. It was like he already knew that given the tone of Eren’s ranting the previous night, Jean’s approach wasn’t going to get anywhere with him today. Neither was he likely to want to go within five miles of HQ – Eren could put up all the fronts he wanted, but he knew he’d never be able to hide from Armin’s soft, knowing blue eyes. Curiously, Jean seemed to relent, because he didn’t put up any further argument to being shooed away.  
“Fine, but make sure he gets up some time today. He can’t sulk in here forever.”  
  
**_\- Armin -  
_**  
It wasn’t very often any more, in fact had never been very often, that Armin Arlert had cause to head to Levi’s office. The vast majority of his time on the top floor was spent helping Hanji research or sharing thoughts on tactics with Erwin from what little tactical experience he’d had in his own past life. Erwin was never one to narrow his sources of information, it turned out, and if a person came with past military experience he sought to take advantage of it no matter how small the scope.  
  
After everything he’d learnt when Eren came home last night, after the look on Eren’s face and the physical damage that he had no doubt had occurred after he’d been ordered to hang up – he still cringed when he remembered the cold anger in the Lance Corporal’s tone – as he understood things, there were a few things that Levi needed to know that he _knew_ Eren wouldn’t tell him on his own. Not as things stood. Eren was too angry at his perceived slight and would probably now be too nervous around Levi to talk about the things that he thought mattered.  
  
“Excuse me for interrupting, Lance Corporal, but do you mind if I come in?” he called, pushing the door open and peeking around the dark polished wood after a quick, quiet knock. “It’s about Eren.”  
  
“I’d have been ok with that, before you said Jaegers name, Arlert. I really don’t have time to listen to a sad story about your friend.”  
Taking a deep breath, Armin stepped further inside anyway, dropping into the usual at attention stance typically required of formal interactions, his hands behind his back and his shoulders squared just in front of Levi’s desk. Although Erwin didn’t complain, he’d found Hanji just laughed and waved off people who kept the formality. He didn’t yet know Levi’s preference about it so he was mostly playing it safe for now, especially given the importance of their topic.  
  
There was quite a bit of money (after the bet about whether the two of them would get together romantically that Hanji seemed to have got everyone sucked into) and, more importantly, Eren's happiness riding on this conversation and he wasn't about to allow Levi to shut him down off the cuff straight away.  
"Then perhaps you shouldn't have done what you did last night, sir." he replied firmly, his eyes removed from Levi's but his voice strong and polite nonetheless. "You don't know him like I do, and I'm guessing he's sporting a nice collection of bruises because he lashed out at you last night."  
“Astute observation.”  
  
"If he's lashing out, its because you got too close to the real him last night. It means he's scared and he doesn't know how to cope." Armin continued, leaning forward to rest his hands on the edge of the desk and sigh, glancing down at them. "He values your opinion a lot more than he's willing to admit.. and if he's said anything self deprecating then you should know that it's because he's still feeling guilty because he couldn't save his parents. They were murdered in front of him in cold blood, and he only took this.. 'second chance'.. or whatever this is in order to avenge them."  
  
He wasn’t sure whether anyone had told Levi this, whether Levi was the type to go looking through the files of the people he was assigned to.. but it explained a lot of Eren’s current hang ups, he thought. So it was better if Levi was made aware without it having to come from Eren himself. The thought that he was essentially going behind Eren’s back lingered but he pushed it aside. Eren needed the mentoring. He needed this, and if this was what it took this was what had to be done. He was not going to lose Eren from his life a second time. "That's why he's a reckless idiot, and he needs someone to train him out of it. I can't do it, and neither could Mikasa. He won't listen to us. But perhaps you can."  
  
“He’s made it quite clear he’s not going to let me, Arlert.” Levi turned his chair slightly so that he was sideways on, staring blankly at nothing and clearly deep in thought, one arm rested on the dark wood of his desk top with the chair tilting back as he shifted his weight in that direction.  
  
"Sorry if I sound like Jean.. but when last I checked you weren't the kind of person who required permission for that kind of thing.” Armin argued calmly. “Eren needs someone to stop him self-destructing and if you didn't at least care a little bit you wouldn't have let Hanji interrupt my doing him a favour, so don't try and wave me off."  
  
"Hey..." He frowned slightly, eyes still trained on Armin, "me rearranging the kid’s face wasn't me brushing him off, I fully intend to drag him out kicking and screaming if he doesn't show up for the next job we are assigned. But me trying to do my job and him letting me are two different things."  
"You say 'letting' like you intend to give him a choice, sir. I'd suggest not doing that. Incase it wasn't already obvious I don't think he'll put up that much of a struggle once he accepts that you aren't backing down."  
"And exactly just how long will that take? My patience isn't infinite, Arlert. I don't intend on waiting for him to submit forever." He smirked upon saying the last few words, and Armin eyed the change of expression with slight trepidation as Levi’s PC beeped and his attention redirected to it for a few moments, only being returned to him when he spoke again.  
  
"His patience isn't infinite either. It took Jean two weeks of nagging and a bottle of tequila, and that was when he was dead set on shutting him out after the last time they had a throw down.” Armin replied, smiling quietly now. Eren didn’t even remember what they’d argued about if you went back and asked him about it now, he was usually so quick to forget and forgive. Or maybe it was just special treatment for Jean. “I know you've seen the sketchbook, and I'd bet good money you can do better than that. You mean more to him already, you have done for months - he just doesn't know how to deal with that yet. When he does you'll have a hunting partner for life, and one you can count on to be able to keep up, at that."    
  
A genuine smile seemed to creep across Levi’s face when he mentioned the sketchbook, and it relaxed Armin considerably. Levi didn’t smile often but when he did even Armin had to admit it was the kind of expression that could cheer other people up too, if only for how rare it was.  
"I'll make sure to have the tequila on standby, then."  
"I'm sure you will sir. Just don't tell him I told you that.” A quiet sigh left Armin as he thought back to what Eren was probably doing, having left him curled up in his bed alone and most likely still sulking and sleepy. “I need to get back and make sure he isn't raiding my fridge. And be careful, Eren's.. well. A  **cuddly**  drunk."  
"Im pretty sure I can handle that," Armin smiled and nodded, taking that as his cue to leave. It was only once he got to the door that he heard Levi speak again, turning to glance back over his shoulder at the somewhat lonely figure that the Lance Corporal cut sitting alone in his office. "Thank you, Arlert."  
Armin closed the door after him, his mind turning to going back home. Hanji wouldn’t need him in until later so right now, his priority was still the moody lump of black-blue feathers occupying his bed.  
  
**_\- Eren -  
_**  
Eren was disturbed by the staccato beat of his communicator and growled himself awake, flailing around amid the coverlets for a moment before his hand crawled out of the mound of white and wrapped around the offending object, pulling it towards him so that he could read the message on the strip.  
  
_'Get your ass to HQ, brat. You have sparring training in an hour. If you don't show and you make me drag you there, it will not be pretty. - L.C Rivaille'_  
  
The wounds inflicted on him from the previous night had more or less healed completely now, but he still ached, and he hadn't forgotten Levi's words. They stung, sticking in his brain like glass shards that he just couldn't dig out. He snorted, pitching the communicator over the edge of the bed and rolling over to turn his back on it. He knew it was futile not to turn up though, as the Lance Corporal already knew where Armin lived, he was sure.  
  
It was half an hour before he was willing to drag himself out of bed, regardless, and he picked up his clothes to shuffle groggily across the corridor to his own apartment still half dressed but totally uncaring because if anyone saw him it would be Armin coming back and both of them had probably seen him in worst states than tired and achy and shirtless. Fresh clothes and a shower sorted him out quite nicely, a black tank top and dark, faded green combats being thrown on because he knew that if he was sparring with Levi after the fight they had last night he wasn't going to be cut any slack. He needed clothes he could move in and be comfortable in if he was going to spend two or three hours running away from his CO. Last night he'd been too blinded by his emotions to really fight back but that wasn't the case now.  
  
He got to HQ only to be redirected down to one of the larger sparring halls, finding Levi waiting for him hanging back against the wall with arms loosely folded as he usually had been when overseeing a class of trainees before. He was wearing all black, having come prepared for a long haul much like Eren, but his loose fitting clothing didn’t deter Eren’s eyes from wandering just a little.  
  
He was neutral faced but the tension in his shoulders made his slow simmering annoyance all too clear as he walked up to Levi and saluted, hand pressed to his heart as he waited at attention to find out what magical mystery tour of pain the Lance Corporal had decided was due now. He was exactly on time, just shy of a minute or two, so he didn't think he could be bitched at for being late even though he hadn't exactly rushed to get here.  
"And here's the training ro-oh wait, Marco, we totally have to watch this." he resisted the urge to groan into his hands as Jean walked in, a new face trailing behind him that he didn’t recognise. Another teenager, his posture was as small and non-invasive as possible and he wore a placid smile, a generous dusting of freckles across his cheeks and soft brown eyes taking the two of them in. His expression was unsure and cautious and he was keeping close to Jean but the rings around his eyes suggested that he was either really, _really_ new and had spent last night getting his wings or he didn’t sleep all that well. Given Jean’s sudden shift to a mentor role he was placing his bets on very new.  
“Our resident nut-job Jaeger here's going to get his ass whooped by one of our strongest fighters for being a little shit. Should be a good combat lesson."  
  
"Can it, Jean." he hissed in reply, glaring at him as he waltzed off to pick a pew on one of the benches in order to watch them spar, pulling his follower along for the ride. "I'm not going anywhere today." His words weren't cocky so much as a level-headed challenge. They'd see how well they fared once he started fighting back. He'd wager that he could give Levi a run for his money with the extra things that Annie had taught him.  
  
"He is right though." Eren just rolled his eyes at that as Levi pushed off the wall and approached him, still angry enough to put aside the star-struck half of his brain that was dancing happily at the thought of getting combat training from someone as good as Levi. He was too busy stretching his muscles to warm them up before they started to pay much attention to really fighting as Levi walked away and into the centre of the sparring area, pausing to tighten one of the straps around his thighs a little bit more where it felt looser than he usually had it. "You are a perfect example of a little shit that needs proper discipline in his life."  
  
"With all due respect, sir," he replied, it clear from his tone that he the 'respect' he purportedly had was precisely nowhere to be found in him, "you're not going to teach me anything I haven't already learnt from Mikasa and Annie if we're just sparring." He headed over, rolling one shoulder then the other and taking a few deep breaths to psyche himself up. "If I didn't have discipline I wouldn't have made it through the training in the first place."  
  
"With the only notable word of comment from your instructors being _'hardworking.'"_  
They were circling each other now, testing each other out, expressions equally blank as they carefully watched the reactions their small movements closer or further back gained.  
"Hard work can be applied in any area, rather than just one." he replied, shrugging slightly. "So I'm actually quite proud of that comment."  
"You might be hardworking, kid, but that certainly doesn't lead to disciplined. If that's all you have to be proud of from your time in basic training, you've done something wrong."  
  
He ignored the quiet catcall of "Ooooh, burn!" from Jean in the background, raising an eyebrow at his opponent. If Levi thought he was worse at fighting when he was angry then he hadn't been paying very close attention and trying to annoy him wasn't working too well because they both knew how it had ended last night. You couldn't annoy someone with insults when they inwardly agreed with your criticisms.  
"Then go ahead, waste your time. We both know how it'll end."  
  
Levi made a quiet sound of agreement but didn’t seem to back down any as he kept up his slow, measured movements to keep space between Eren and himself.  
"Care to enlighten me on how this will play out, then, Jaeger?"  
"We hurt each other for a bit and then we go home. Nothing demonic dies in the process, so neither of us make any productive use of today." Eren replied, mirroring his movements. He wasn’t going to let what had happened the night before make him more tense or apprehensive around Levi, he couldn’t, or Levi would think he’d won some kind of headway towards changing his mind when that wasn’t going to happen.  
  
"Interesting deduction. Though you have missed a key factor." Levi came to a halt, his back to the row of benches Jean and Marco were watching from as Eren watched him drop into a more defensive stance than before. "I don't ever waste my time on lack of productivity.  If you still think you are just a dead human, you shouldn't have a problem with not using your wings. So be a good little brat and keep them hidden."  
  
There was no way he was going to do that, and Levi should know that already after how they’d clashed before – Eren didn’t really practice much even when his opponents outclassed him. Annie and Mikasa had always fought with him exactly the way they would fight in the field and that’s what he’d taken to doing. He might still see himself as a human but that didn’t mean he would ever willingly ignore the physical advantages his wings offered.  
  
It wasn’t that long before Eren’s patience reached its end and he figured that if he wasn’t going to be the first one to form some kind of offensive they’d both be there all damn day. The sooner they got this over with the sooner he could retreat to his bed and keep thinking all of this over.  
This time, though, Levi easily combated his movements, easily skirting him or blocking him if it came to it. Eren’s frustration quickly built but given he was still a little restive from the previous day all it did was proceed to make him unpredictable.  
  
Eren was knocked back relatively quickly when Levi decided he had had enough, and it only took a few consecutive swipes at him before he faced the choice of either escaping with the help of his wings or being floored. He grit his teeth, deciding he wasn’t going to just let Levi claim first blood so easily, his large black wings creating a whoosh of air as they curved out from his body and shifted to allow him to keep his defensive stance balanced and keep himself upright.  
  
Their fighting styles were completely different – Levi was the same kind of detached and analytical that he recognised in Mikasa, but Eren depended on his strength of emotion to do any fighting at all, and it showed in his unpredictable movements. He didn’t like the thought that if he lost his grip on his frustration, Levi could get hurt. Yes, the Lance Corporal was fast, but he knew for a fact that when rage made him see nothing but red, he was faster.  
Not necessarily any harder to block or knock off his feet, but faster. The question was whether Levi thought he knew what he was getting himself into, by essentially hazing him like this.  
  
The pause created by his wings blossoming into view was only a few seconds, but seemed to put Levi on the back foot as he stopped and backed up. Eren took the opportunity and ran with it. His wings gave him the ability to drastically increase his speed, launching himself towards Levi with a fist aimed for his collarbone. The alternative was his solar plexus but that was too obvious for someone who so easily outmatched him in terms of experience. His unpredictability was his strength here.  
  
Levi ducked to the side, following the momentum to swing his bare foot upward. Eren hissed through clenched teeth as his heel clipped the tip of his left wing, kicking it away. The action unsettled the layers of feathers and it was a similar sensation to hearing scratching on a chalkboard, goosebumps raising against the slight layer of sweat his skin was accumulating as their sparring heated up. Taking the chance he’d created by drawing Eren’s attention to his own wing, the teen found himself having to take step after step backward to avoid lightning fast punches now aimed at him as Levi homed in.  
  
If this was a normal fight he’d have backed off by now – one of the first things Mikasa taught him. Back off, re-evaluate, rejoin. Don’t overextend yourself, or let the other person distract you enough to back you into a corner. Get some space and try to find a tactical advantage that won’t involve you going too far.  
Pushing yourself too far was how you lost people, she’d said. He didn’t want to think about how she’d learnt that lesson because from the look in her eyes, it wasn’t from being a nephilim.  
  
A few swift beats of his wings against the air took him upward, but clearly Levi wasn’t going to let him have the space. Strong fingers wrapped around his ankle and yanked, the pull strong enough to have him slamming down against the matting. Eren suppressed the urge to yelp and was surprised that Levi had chosen to use such a characteristically demonic tactic, but he was more concerned with the hand twisting in his shirt and throwing him over onto his back. Then the heel pressing down into the small of it, and all of a sudden he was thinking back to the previous night, Levi’s weight on his chest as he told him things he had no inclination to believe were true.  
  
His thoughts ran short as Levi’s fingers dug into his feathers, taking a firm grip just under the largest joint on either side and pulling backward. Back arching to accommodate the movement in an effort to limit the pain dancing down his spine, Eren couldn’t help the quiet whine that left him.  
  
“You…” Levi paused, panting for breath just as hard as Eren was with the amount of force he’d had to extend to put Eren back on the floor. Was still having to extend in order to _keep_ him there. “Are _not_ human. A nephilim without its wings is a play toy to a demon.” Eren felt a yank on his wing joints and had to press his face down into the matting to quiet the groan of pain that slipped his effort to stay silent. Levi knew he knew this already, knew it had already been drilled into him, but he was reiterating it anyway, as if the reminder of actually having his wings yanked on would make it sink in more. "Your wings are for you to  _protect._  Without them you are as good as finished, in the eyes of a demon. A grounded nephilim is a fucking  _dead_  one."  
  
The eye-watering grip on his wings was gone, then, as quick as it had been established, and all Eren had the wherewithal to do was sag into the cushioned surface below him with a breath of relief. "You do not use them to cheat a fight, to take the easy way out. The second a demon can see your wings and you are on the ground, they’ll be ripped off."  
  
Eren glared at him as he rolled his shoulders, flexing his wings to try and stop the aching in them a little from being bent past their normal limits of movement. He was met with a glare right back that would have made a lesser person cower, and as the tense moment unfolded he couldn’t help noticing that their audience had fallen deathly silent too. He vaguely hoped that Marco wasn’t getting the wrong impression from all of this.  
“Now stop being a child. Wings away.. _Again.”_ Levi growled the command out, reassuming his defensive stance with arms raised to guard his face and feet planted against the floor.  
  
“Fine.” He ground out in response, testing his wings once or twice to check they weren't sprained anywhere and would still be able to support his weight in the air before hiding them. He had no intention of keeping them that way, though. He wasn't treating this like a sparring match and deep down it felt like Levi wasn't either. "You want to play, then I'll play along. You still won't win."  
  
He knew what Levi was trying to do, but for him fighting like a nephilim meant flying. It meant having his wings out all the time and actually using his natural advantage. He never engaged a demon on equal ground if he had the choice so he really didn't see what the problem with his current fighting methods were.  
  
And that was the point. His fighting methods weren't what Levi was trying to correct at all. He was trying to change his mindset. Trying to make him see things from his point of view, or to exhaust him until he had no choice but to listen because he couldn't keep fighting. So he'd stay on his feet until he was unconscious or Levi had given up.  
  
This time he fell into a defensive stance, taking time to slow down and think as Annie and Mikasa had taught him the first time around. Levi was shorter and slightly lighter than him but that didn't mean he was weaker. His agility made trying to dodge him a problem without his wings, and he had several years more experience, especially when he was going all out.  
  
This was not meant to be a fight that Eren could win. So he wasn't going to try to win, not any more, he was just going to dodge, as Annie had taught him, going to play the waiting game until Levi came to him first. Going to get him on his ass and pin him to the floor until he gave up. If he could get Levi down, and that was the hard part, he thought it should be easy enough to keep him there. He was heavier and gravity would do most of the work for him past a certain point.  
  
They fell back to circling, testing, and this time Eren was being a lot more careful to just dodge. To waiting for Levi to snap first - which eventually he did, calmly testing Eren's defenses in sharp, practised movements. If Eren had been in Jean's position right now you wouldn’t be able to see him for filled sketchbook pages, but unfortunately he was the person in the target of Levi's slow burning wrath today.  
  
"Getting tired?" he asked, smirking. He got no response apart from a more co-ordinated attack, Levi trying a fraction harder to get past his admittedly patchy defenses. They weren't point scoring here so it didn’t really matter how many times Levi hit him as long as he could get back up and keep moving. And he was, his wings appearing for a split second to scoot himself back and out of the way in a rush of air before they were hidden from view again, the movement almost too fast to track and one of the tricks he'd picked up from Mikasa when she taught him how to fight a demon without making your wings an obvious weak point.  
  
If Levi was going to fight by his own rules, as a human, he wouldn't be able to use his ability to guestimate where Eren's wings should be when hidden in order to pin them. But something told him that Levi was going to go for them anyway, so he kept them lax but ready, planning to head for the roof and safely out of reach the moment Levi went for them again, just as he would in a real fight.  
  
"You’re just giving me time to recover. You will wear yourself out quicker than me being up there."  
  
Eren sighed, not in the least bit interested as he leant over the rail he was perched on after having got himself up onto the railing surrounding the observation balcony given that it was the only available perch, watching Levi wait for him to come down as he got his breath back for a moment. If this had been a real fight, and he'd had his gun, his vantage point and flight speed meant he could have turned and shot the demon Levi was posing as down like taking out a fish in a barrel. Which really just proved how pointless this whole exercise was.  
"The more you run the more time you give the enemy to win."  
  
It was annoying. The mere suggestion that he would run from such a fight was a good way to get his hackles up, and it showed as he vaulted forward, getting from railing to floor level in record time even though Levi was easily able to anticipate him and dodge the movement. This was a game he had no interest in playing, but at least he could say that Levi was fair, he'd give him that much. He hadn't tried to fully use his own wings once, even though if he did, Eren would probably have been on his ass quicker than he could blink. At least he stuck by his own rules even though they gave him a disadvantage.  
"Stop trying to stop me and fucking _stop me_ already."  
  
"I'm not  _running_  anywhere." he replied, brushing the taunting off. It was obvious he was still a little out of breath, but he wasn't about to give up, resuming his defensive stance. If Levi really wanted him to get him on the floor, then fine. He'd just have to flip him like Annie had taught him. He was well aware that weight didn't matter because he was going to be relying on momentum - if Levi used the same move on him despite their differences in height he'd be able to floor him just as easily.  
  
Using his wings to boost his momentum he shot forward and took a firm hold of Levi's shoulders, aiming a sweeping kick at the back of his leg that should allow him to completely flip the older nephilim. It was one of Annie's signature moves and he was aware that Levi had hunted with her for a while so he'd probably already seen it done a lot, and it had taken him a lot of practise to learn but he used it on demons quite regularly, especially ones inhabiting vessels bigger or stronger than him.  
  
He was going to try it anyway, planning taking the chance to sit on Levi's legs and pin his wrists to the floor once he got him there to prove the point that yes, he could floor a demon and keep it pinned if he had to. To prove the point that no matter whether Levi thought he was using this time efficiently or not, he was still right. They weren’t going to kill any demons like this and at the end of the day that was all Eren cared about, so they were still wasting time.  
  
Levi fell with the momentum, but Eren didn’t trust the smirk he was wearing even after he pinned his wrists to the mat, sounds of surprise from their two watchers vaguely filtering through his intense focus on the physicality of their positions and where to apply his weight to keep Levi down.  
"If you wanted to be on top, all you had to do was ask." Levi’s tone was slightly teasing but it was disguised behind a tired sigh, and Eren shot him a silent glare. He was too busy basking in the one singular moment of thinking _‘holy shit it worked’_ and being vaguely proud of himself before Levi’s hips bucked and he felt the tension coiling through his core muscles where he was rested against them to keep Levi stuck against the floor. Then, Levi’s legs tucked up and hooked over his wings, pinning them at an odd angles and aggravating all the finely tuned nerves down his back for the second time in a few minutes.  
  
Except this time, as long as he didn’t actually move it wasn’t painful at all. There was the slightest suggestion of the ache that he _could_ be feeling every time Levi’s ankles or calves moved slightly to keep their balanced but in that instant every fibre in his being was concentrating on just how up close and personal they were, pressed flat against each other, Eren’s arms braced either side of Levi’s head to keep himself from losing his own balance – it wasn’t like there was any point keeping him pinned down, Levi was clearly the one who held the upper hand now even with his body pinned beneath Eren’s and both wrists held captive beneath his fingers.  
  
In this position, he could have trapped both Levi’s wrists in one hand and gone for one of the knives that would have been attached to his waist or chest via the leather belts he usually wore. So he’d still have won. As it stood he was too busy just trying to modulate his own breathing pattern, panting from the exertion and trying (and, he suspected, failing) to stop himself from blushing bright red all the way out to the tips of his ears, his brain whirring to a shuddering halt.  
“Soft.”  
  
He shivered, his thoughts spiralling off on a tangent as the rest of him became more invested in what he could feel. He knew there was an easy way to get out of this hold, Annie had undoubtedly told him what it was as a precedent for expecting what the person you’d pinned would do next when she taught him the flip in the first place. But he couldn’t remember it, the pounding of his own heart in his ears almost all he could concentrate on as the soles of Levi’s bare feet brushed against his wings, able to feel each disturbed feather individually as the older nephilim purposefully unsettled them. It must have felt like trying to stroke a cat backwards, Eren’s body wracked with unnatural shivers at the disturbance although he had the self-discipline to remain still. Just about.  
  
Levi’s tone was smug, almost, and it made it a lot easier to get annoyed with him again – he could use that frustration to actually open his mouth, and stop squirming and choking up like an absolute idiot. Especially after being so confident in his own abilities earlier.  
  
“Like you’d let me top you.” he hissed. “Clearly you’re too fast for that.”  
“Never know.” Came the leisurely reply, Eren squirming in earnest now as he tried to extend his wings. The hold of Levi’s legs was stronger than his wing muscles, though, and the attempt failed. “I might be convinced to slow down.”  
  
He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to punch that smug smirk off the Corporal’s face, or lean down and close the distance between them in order to kiss it away instead. He shoved the traitorous thought away almost as soon as it occurred to him. He was supposed to be angry with Levi, not worried about getting hot under the collar because they were up close and personal. Damn his teenage hormones.  
  
“Old age will do that to you, I hear.” He couldn’t help the urge to taunt Levi even in a position as precarious as his, trying desperately to cover for the minute or two of shock where he’d completely frozen up. He learnt from it almost instantly, Levi’s knees bending so that his grip on Eren’s wing joints tightened and then pulling outward, and Eren was forced to let out a pained groan. It felt like he was trying to pull them out by the roots and goddamn it _hurt_.  
  
“Didn’t stop me getting you in such a hold though did it?”  
“Let me go.” His voice wavered, tight with pain, betraying him despite the fact he wanted it to sound more like an order than a request. It came out through gritted teeth as more of a whimper than a threat, all his breath stolen as he gave up the ghost and slumped forward to rest all his weight against Levi. Perhaps if he couldn’t win a fight against him he could crush him against the matting instead. His forehead hit the matting inches from Levi’s shoulder, breath coming out in short, heated pants over his exposed collarbone where the bottom part of his face was pressed against pale skin.  
  
Pressed against him so closely, he could feel the slow, deep breath in and out that Levi took, not moving now that he was trapped under Eren’s dead weight except to twist his head slightly to stare up at the ceiling.  
“You two _really_ need to get a room.”  
  
Eren’s attempt to regain his focus was shattered by the jeered catcall from Jean. It would be so, so easy to get out of Levi’s hold now. All he had to do was hide his wings and then he could get up, march across the room, and sock the prat right in the teeth. The only problem was that he couldn’t summon the concentration to have enough control over his wings to hide them. Had Levi been a demon, he’d have been long gone by now.  
  
The inherent problem in this was that Levi _wasn’t_ an attacker. Eren felt inexplicably comfortable around him physically, even if he didn’t necessarily trust him to have the right motives. He didn’t _need_ to trust Levi’s motives here – Levi was his teacher, that was all. He could trust him not to put him through anything that Levi didn’t think he could handle and that was, apparently, a solid enough reason to allow his personal thoughts on the man to cloud his mind and make him thoroughly unprofessional.  
  
“Weren’t you on a tour _Kirsch-neigh?”_ Levi’s voice held quiet laughter in it, despite being pointed enough to skewer, his fingers flexing idly under Eren’s grip. He was met with grumbling, and he heard Jean’s voice intone something indistinct about sexual tension under his breath that he was honestly glad he didn’t catch, and within a few moments they were alone. “You don’t sound very convincing, Jaeger.”  
  
“Shut up. I don’t have to convince you of anything.” He sounded pathetic, he knew he did, his reply muffled against Levi’s neck as his breath caused goosebumps to break out across the pale skin beneath him.  
  
“Poor baby.” Levi didn’t come across as the least bit sympathetic, causing him to shiver uncontrollably again from skull to tailbone as Levi brushed his toes against his feathers again, smoothing them down now, his thighs gripping him tighter. “Are you sure about that?”  
  
His voice was smooth and low, now, holding a teasing edge that Eren didn’t know what to do with except pray he could avoid thinking too hard about.  
“Pretty sure you’re cheating now.” He tried for airy and sarcastic, but he was under no illusion that he achieved it for even a second.  
  
“And who’s been cheating and not listening to me since we started? Hmm?” The words were quiet, spoken directly next to his ear, Levi’s lips so close to brushing his skin he could feel them moving almost. All the tiny hairs on the back of his neck were standing up, and it felt like he was resting just on the edge of a chilled shiver but couldn’t quite get himself there. Levi was close but just that little bit too far away, still. The smug bastard knew _exactly_ what he was doing. “You’ve not been listening, otherwise you wouldn’t be in such a predicament, kid.”  
  
If he hadn't kept up at night dreaming about Levi before he was relatively confident that this would be the thing that did it for him, the older nephilim's grip unrelentingly strong and his body heat so close, so enticing that the more he tried to push it away the more he thought about it. This wasn't good. He was supposed to be angry at the man who had turned out to be nothing like what he'd expected, and instead..  
  
"Maybe I'll listen when you have something to say here that's worth listening to." he replied hotly. If Levi wanted to cheat, because it was obvious by his voice and his smirk that he was, then two could play at that game.  Now that their small audience had been chased away he had no qualms about the idea of scaring him a little. If he couldn’t scare him off with violence then maybe he could get to him other ways instead. "All I've been doing is treating this like I would any other fight. But if you're going to cheat.."  
  
He was nervous, but Levi wasn’t the only person who was getting to know him – he’d been doing his fair share of close observation. He knew that Levi was meticulous about preserving his personal space. Others were only allowed to touch him if it suited him. Eren could respect that even if he was the exact opposite, constantly cuddling and touching the people he was anything closer than an acquaintance with when he felt like it. He got the feeling that if anyone spontaneously tried to hug Levi they’d end up with a knife to the throat, but he was perfectly happy allowing that kind of thing himself without so much as a warning. Physical displays of affection were throw-away to him, something he could give other people without reading into it at all. He kissed Armin on the cheek offhand or cuddled up with him for hours to watch Netflix together all the time but neither of them read anything more into it.  
  
So he was banking on this being the thing that pushed Levi too far. He was expecting Levi to pull away from him, to stop him. To be irritated, to push him back and get both of them out of the impasse they found themselves at. He didn’t get what he was expecting.  
  
The world seemed to slow down and narrow in as he hesitantly leant forward and kissed Levi’s neck. It was little more than a quick peck, just the barest touch against Levi’s skin – but he didn’t get any reaction at all. Levi stalled, finally, truly just _stalled_ completely, and he felt a smug rush of victory flood him and kept on going, leaving a quick, tentative trail of kisses up his neck. Adrenaline rushed through him as he got closer and closer to crossing a line he couldn’t come back from, to kissing Levi for real, and for some reason Levi was still frozen. Still not pushing him away, breathing shallowly and just letting him do as he liked.  
  
He relinquished his grip on Levi’s wrists the moment he felt his arms move, expecting to be shoved backward only to feel lithe fingers skimming his scalp as they wound into his hair and tilted his head, ensuring that the next kiss was a _real one_. It was slow and searching, and very much not the quick peck he had originally planned for at all, the brunet having to do his best not to whimper for another reason entirely as he felt teeth nip at his lips and the soft occasional brush of Levi's tongue against his own.  
  
And then as fast as it had started, it was over, and the world seemed to come crashing back in as he began to panic, wondering what had just happened. Because that certainly hadn't been a punch to the face. That had been an experience he had to admit to himself he would have been itching to repeat, had he not been scared and confused and slightly brain dead with shock.  
  
"All you had to do was hide your wings,  _brat_." Levi's voice washed over him but the words made no sense as he shuffled back, gaze fixed on the floor. He could already feel Levi's legs uncoiling from around his wings and he was intensely glad for it. He knew that, but he couldn’t find the words to say it, his thoughts whirling and leaving him grasping for something to reply with. "And that hold wouldn't have bothered you. But screw it. When you've done being a child, come see me."  
  
As it was his brain couldn't co-ordinate a response as Levi turned and walked out, and it was a good ten minutes before he summoned the active will to move, his shock making it all too easy to return to his usual go-to emotion these days, anger. Because really, what the fuck?! It had been his own choice to risk that but he had never expected Levi to actually kiss him and he was, if he was being painfully truthful, so livid because he knew he couldn’t deny how much he had liked it, even to himself. He knew, right then and there, how easy it would be to really just let himself fall. To go back to Levi's office and apologise, offer him anything he wanted if it meant they could pick up where they stopped. So his only recourse was anger, because Levi must have known. Must have toyed with him like that on purpose. He couldn’t think of any other reason why he’d have allowed it to happen.  
  
Growling, he got to his feet and headed straight for the elevator a little way down the corridor from the training rooms, pushing into Levi's office without so much as knocking to announce his presence to find him sat at his desk, by all appearances cool as a cucumber and completely unruffled. As if nothing had happened.  
  
He huffed for breath for a few seconds before managing to find his voice, fists clenched by his sides as he shook with the force of his anger.  
"What the hell was that back there?!" he demanded. "You were supposed to kick my ass again and run off creeped out, not whatever..  _that_.. was!"  
Levi observed him coolly for a few moments, and he was almost as infuriated by his ability to dismiss the whole thing out of hand. Like it meaning nothing equated to him not meaning anything either.  
"Think it'd be unfair to kick a child’s ass for being curious."  
Eren took a breath or two in an attempt to calm himself down a little before replying. It didn’t work in the slightest.  
  
 "The only thing I'm 'curious' about is why you didn't freak out. You knew what I was doing. Why'd you react like that?" he asked, mostly annoyed but also genuinely curious. Even if the answer was something he wasn’t going to like.  
"You really think I'm going to tell you?"  
"Well I'd wager you won't like it if I have to take guesses. So yes."  
  
"I dunno.." Levi paused, settling his feet up in his desk, carefully crossing one over the other as he observed the teen carefully over the top of the wooden surface as if he didn’t quite know what to make of his sudden appearance just yet, as if it hadn’t been expected when Eren had taken his ‘come find me’ as an instruction to follow him here once his brain had kicked back into gear. That did not look to have been what he actually meant. "I'm certainly not going to open up while your demanding you shitty little face off, kid."  
  
"Firstly, I am not a fucking  _kid_." Eren shot back, walking around the desk to remove the wooden barrier between them that was making him slightly uncomfortable for some reason and also so that he didn’t have to have an eyeful of Levi’s legs while he was still trying to be annoyed at him. "But fine. I'll guess. I'm not listening to you so you thought you'd scare me. Or maybe you're not getting enough attention and you felt like it because hey, I'm not going to turn you away, right? I'm too 'scared', or whatever.” he snorted, shaking his head. He knew exactly what he was doing when he said what came next. “Or maybe the only other person you're used to training with is someone you used to kiss all the time without thinking about it and now you're on the rebound." The jab seemed to have hit home as he saw Levi inhale sharply, but remained silent as he waited for the inevitable counter argument.   
  
"I'm sure I could pick someone far better if I were on the rebound. I certainly don't think you're 'scared' though, Jaeger, and having a temper tantrum isn't going to stop me thinking you're a child."  
"I dunno, Jean seems to think I'm good enough for a rebound or two. Maybe that’s good enough for me." he quipped. "Told you you wouldn't like it if I had to guess." Somehow he dared to get a little bit closer, resting on the desk. "If you don’t think I'm scared, then care to enlighten me on what I am instead?"  
"Why do you want to know so badly? Why is this irritating you to come storming in to my office uninvited?"  
"Because I want to know. If you only see me as a child then why the fuck are you still persisting with this at all? Why don't you just let me go back to Armin?" Okay, he could admit that by pursuing this so single-mindedly he probably was being childish right now. But the roaring anger coiled tight in his chest wouldn’t let him do anything else.  
"Because you have potential that you can't reach with a mushroom who doesn't like combat."  
That seemed like another offhand, none-answer, and he’d heard all of that before. Levi had used that as an excuse last time and he wasn’t about to let him now. Not to mention he didn’t particularly enjoy hearing Armin called a mushroom – it was true that Hanji regularly had nicknames for people, but somehow the word seemed like more of an insult than a nickname coming from Levi.  
"Fine, back to Jean, then." he insisted.  
"And watch you get each other killed? No chance"  
"We didn't get each other killed before. You shouldn't even be wasting your time when I already trained."  
_"_ And badly, apparently." Levi paused, pushing his chair back and moving further away from Eren to walk over to the large glass window and stare at the cityscape outside, his mind clearly trying to be somewhere else for a few moments. "Why do you not want to hunt with me so badly? It can't just be my way of working."  
"You dodged my question, so don't think I'm answering that.” he replied, shaking his head and folding his arms as he rested fully back on the side of the desk now that Levi was no longer as close to it. His anger had bubbled down to a quieter level but it was still obvious in his tense body. “Why are you so interested in me? And don't give me that easy answer 'potential' bullshit. Everyone else has more potential than me."  
"Get out of my office."  
"Are you just doing it because Commander Erwin asked you to, then? Is that it?" This was probably the only reason he wanted to believe, and he was glad when he got confirmation of it that he was relatively sure that was a lie but that he wanted to be the truth. Because then he could stick to his preconceived notion of meaning precisely nothing to Levi, and he didn’t have to question any of this any further. Then everything remained simple. Then he hadn’t screwed anything up with his actions today.  
"Sure. Smith ordered me to do here we are."  
  
Somehow though, no matter how much he wanted to hear it, he couldn’t help but remain unconvinced by the words. No matter how bitter they almost sounded.  
"Well at least that sounds believable. It's him I should be asking about this, clearly."  
"If you don't want to hunt with me this badly Eren, three doors down on your left as you leave my office."  
  
"Well, you answered mine." He nodded, but paused and made no move to leave, anger suddenly nowhere to be found as he observed Levi’s impassive expression and couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d hurt him somehow. Even if he was trying to convince himself that he didn’t care. "So I'll answer yours. I don't want to hunt with you because.. well.. let’s just say you deserve a lot better than being saddled with me."  
  
"That's not a good enough reason." Levi turned again, folding his arms atop the desk. "The Commander won't let you drop this assignment with a poor excuse like that."  
"That’s not necessarily the answer I'll give him, though, is it."  
  
"And what answer will you give him?" Levi finally looked up at him. His gaze was cold and critical but almost held a bit of concern. Something he wanted to think he was imagining. "That you are incapable of working with me? That I am not the people person you thought I was? That I am incapable of working with  **you?**  trust me, he's heard it all before. You'll have to get creative, brat.”  
  
"I can get creative if I need to." he replied, shrugging. "Its not that I.. I never thought you were a 'people person'. I am just not capable of working with someone who is much too valuable to our cause to be waiting for me to catch up.” And that was all there really was to it. Plus he didn’t feel that Levi could teach him anything thus far. “Exactly as I said the first time, humanity would be better served if you were hunting with someone capable of keeping up with you. I am not that person. Not yet. Maybe one day, but I have things to do first."  
"What sort of 'things' do you need to do first?"  
  
The only thing that gave his inner tension at the question away was the fact that the frown on his face deepened a fraction, his hands clenching tight as he crossed his arms around himself, subconsciously seeking the comfort that the gesture would provide. He didn't think that Levi would judge him if he told him the truth.. but he didn't want to. Levi didn't need to know that much about him, especially not if he could persuade Commander Erwin to let him go back to hunting with someone else. They'd been at odds for long enough to prove that it wouldn't work, right? He was fairly confident that the Commanders priorities would put what was better on the whole ahead of his goals for Levi finding a hunting partner in one stubborn, angry teenager.  
  
"Personal things." he replied, taking a few deep breaths. He didn't understand how Levi could get his hackles up without even trying, how he reacted so unpredictably to the things Eren did, completely undermining his expectations. He didn't understand why he wanted so desperately to stay because saying he had 'potential' had to be a lie. He was right when he'd mentioned the fact that the instructors Eren had trained under hadn't thought he was particularly good at anything, and he'd taken the criticism to heart more than he let the people around him catch on to. "Things that would just get in the way if I tried to explain them."  
  
"Personal things... _right."_ He could almost taste to cold sarcasm in his voice as Levi leant back in his chair again, legs unfolding so that he could get to his feet and walk around his desk. "If you're not going to tell me, or trust me enough to, then fine. Go to the Commander with my blessing. But don't think got a second you're going to get your own way." He paused to scoop up his wallet and keys off the couch, where he seemed to have haphazardly tossed them down earlier. "And if you won't get out of my office, I guess I'll just leave, because I'm hungry and I'm not listening to a self saboteur."

He didn’t think it would serve any purpose to tell Levi about just what his reasons were, not yet, so he just shrugged and watched him go. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust anyone to know the information – he’d told Armin and Mikasa, after all, but he didn’t want Levi to have anything he could use to further this stupidity about trying to persuade him that they should stay together.  
  
Plus, he could see from the monitor light reflecting off the leather of the chair Levi had just vacated as he walked out that he had left his computer unlocked. Either he wasn’t in the habit of locking it or he just didn’t see the need, and that left Eren with a golden opportunity. He didn’t have to go and see Commander Erwin himself if he could send him an email or an instant message from Levi’s computer pretending that the Lance Corporal was the one who no longer wanted the current arrangement to persist. He was sure that Erwin would listen to what Levi wanted over his own preferences, even if they had recently broken up.   
  
Luckily Levi even still had his email program open, so he penned a quick one to Erwin to make it look like he’d finally pissed Levi off that bit too much. Even though getting Armin to hack Hanji’s system hadn’t worked for that long he was fairly sure this one might either last a bit longer or be the thing that finally convinced Levi that he wasn’t going to give up trying to get away from him. He didn’t know what precisely about Levi he was running away from, but he knew he was running away. It wasn’t like he could avoid that thought. Mostly because if he really considered it, Levi was making him confront things that other people didn’t. Levi was talking about him like he actually had a future at any of this, and Eren honestly didn’t think he did.  
  
He was well aware of the fact that his way of fighting was going to get him killed.  
As he’d said, he was more or less counting on it. And he didn’t want to take anyone down with him when it happened, he didn’t want Levi to be anywhere near him. Which made getting rid of him and going back to watching him from afar the only alternative.  
  
There might be something on Levi’s computer that he could use to the end of getting rid of him too, something that would push him further than just bringing up his relationship with Erwin did. And a quick root through his account on their network was enough to bring up the records they held on him. He was pretty sure his own file, and all the files of the people from his intake were around, but he wasn’t here for them and he had no idea when Levi was coming back, so he was just going to stick to skim reading though Levi’s to see if anything would jump out. He doubted it would, but it was worth a try.  
  
Fuck only knew what Armin would say, or Mikasa, come to think. This wasn’t exactly very ‘white hat’ of him, but he knew without even having to think too hard about it that if he stayed in contact with Levi he was going to  _want_  to start co-operating with him eventually. It was only a matter of time before he started actually believing that Levi genuinely meant what he said about wanting to help him. What he said about his ability to be a decent fighter if he tried rather than crashing and burning as he was already expecting to do. History repeated itself, after all, and he’d certainly crashed and burnt last time. If he only knew then what he knew now.  
  
_Rivaille, Levi - Lance Corporal, ‘Survey’ Dept.  
Human Life Span: 1912 – 1941 (29 Years)  
Human Occupation: Soldier, French resistance movement. Special Ops._  
  
Nope, nothing he could use there.  
  
_Human Connections:  
\- Parents: Deceased at time of death – cause unlisted. (Update required)  
\- Siblings: N/A.  
\- Spouse: Deceased at time of death  <Complications in childbirth>  
-Children: Rivaille, Lucina – Location at time of death: Paris, France.   
Status: Undetermined._  
  
The idea that Levi might have had a wife and child at one point hit him with all the grace of a brick in a bag of broken glass and he closed that file quicker than he was aware of his hand directing the mouse. That had been a skim-read too far, and he didn’t want to know any more. It was just too personal. That information was being put far out of mind and never brought up again if he could help it.  
  
So he flicked to the next file on the list, which turned out to be about the ‘Special Operations Squad’ that he hadn’t even known existed. A squad that had met it’s apparent end when all the other members ‘defected’, one after the other in rapid succession.  
  
_Petra Ral. <defected, missing>  
Erd Jinn. <defected, missing>  
Gunther Schultz. <defected, missing>  
Auruo Bossard. <defected, missing>_  
  
He leant back in the chair with a troubled expression, propping his elbow on the desk in order to rest his head against it. He’d have to ask Armin if he’d seen anything about defections in the records he’d looked at – because he knew for a fact that he was currently scouring their system for all the information he could get access to just because he didn’t like not having all the facts. He assumed that the only reason he was getting away with it was that Hanji hadn’t noticed yet. Or that Armin was being careful to do it at times where no one else with sufficient computing knowledge, like her, was around to catch him out. So probably at 4AM or some other crazy hour when no one else was actually awake.  
  
The computer beeped and he nearly slipped and hit his head on the desk in surprise, blinking in shock at the Skype notification as Hanji sent him an IM. There was no way he would be able to pass himself off as Levi to her, not in open conversation, so he decided to give himself up right from the off.  
  
_CAZH: Are you going to lunch yet, hun?  
LCRL: He’s already gone, Hanji. Left me behind in his office. (Eren)  
CAZH: PUPPY! Already? That’s so cute. I knew I was right about you! ;)  
LCRL: I’m seeing how many games of solitaire I can play before he gets back._  
  
Eren didn’t really know who he was kidding with that excuse, but what the heck. He couldn’t exactly ask Hanji about the defections if he wasn’t supposed to know about them because then she’d realise that he’d been looking through Levi’s files. But anything else was probably fair game, Hanji seemed to like him.  
  
_CAZH: He likes you, you know. I can tell.  
LCRL: I don’t like him. And that has nothing to do with anything.  
CAZH: You’re a bad liar, sugar. Everyone knows you’ve got it bad except perhaps him.  
LCRL: The only thing I have bad is the urge to not hunt with him anymore.  
CAZH: He’s trying to help you, Eren. Do you really hate him that much?_  
  
That made him hesitate, fidgeting in the chair as he frowned at the screen. The sound of footsteps approaching the door made him tab out for a second to open minesweeper and solitaire in the background just to make it look like he had actually been gaming if it was Hanji strolling down the corridor to corner him face to face – but it turned out to be Levi returning, not really offering him any further greeting than a raised eyebrow as if to say ‘why are you even still here?’ before apparently deciding that his food was more important and proceeding to grab himself a spot on the sofa to eat since Eren had taken his desk chair.  
  
_LCRL: I don’t hate him. I just don’t want to hunt with him. There’s a difference.  
CAZH: Oooh, so you do like him!  
LCRL: Hey. Whoa. No. I didn’t say that. I just said I didn’t hate him.  
CAZH: Maybe you should tell him that. He’s ‘Heaven’s Strongest’, not a mind reader.  
LCRL: I really don’t think he gives two shits what my opinion of him is, Captain. He’s only doing this because Erwin saddled him with it, he said so himself.  
CAZH: Oh yeah? I heard him come back. What’s he eating, Eren?  
LCRL: Why? Is that supposed to mean anything?  
CAZH: Just tell me. Mama Hanji knows things about Levi’s eating habits that will tell you a hell of a lot more about him than what comes out of his mouth does._  
  
Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrow, tilting his head slightly in puzzlement at the screen even though he knew they weren’t on camera to each other and so the gesture would be missed by anyone but Levi, if he was even looking. Still, it couldn’t hurt, right?  
“Is that.. whatever that is.. going to do you any favours after sparring all morning, sir?” he asked, politely puzzled as to why the hell Levi had gone for chinese food at this time of day.  
“I don’t question your odd affinity for pasta salad, kid.” was all the reply he got, Levi clearly still fully concentrated on his food and apparently a little deep in thought as he stared out of the window, munching. “Don’t ask about the chicken stir fry.”  
“Fair enough.”  
  
_LCRL: Chicken stir fry?  
CAZH: Oh. Awwww.  
CAZH: That’s sad. What did you do, you mean little thing?  
LCRL: What, were you expecting ravioli?  
CAZH: Very funny, Eren. Seriously, what did you do? That stuff is what he eats when he’s stressed.   
CAZH: You made him stressed.  
CAZH: Stop hurting my baby.  
LCRL: Hanji he was 29. And that was before however long he’s been dealing with all of this insanity. He’s not a baby. As he likes to remind me by calling me ‘kid’ all the damn time.  
CAZH: You realise if he gave you a pet name that means he likes you, right?  
CAZH: But that’s not the point.  
CAZH: If he’s on the comfort food then you’ve upset him and you’d better apologise!  
CAZH: I know where you sleep, remember.  
LCRL: I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that our priorities are totally different and he gets annoyed when I point it out. Or refuse to back down.  
CAZH: He’s your commanding officer, Eren, his priorities should be your priorities just because of that. But I understand. He’s hard to work with when he’s grumpy, even if it’s cute when he pouts so much.  
LCRL: What’s the point in apologising for something I’m not going to stop doing, either? I’m not going to give up till Commander Erwin realises this whole thing was a mistake and reassigns me, you should know that by now.  
LCRL: Well, I would hope so at least.  
CAZH: That big old softie isn’t going to do anything Levi doesn’t want him to, Eren, so you’re out of luck there. And what you think you want isn’t necessarily what you need.  
CAZH: And we have to put what you need first. What Levi needs, too. Right now, that’s each other, and stop kidding yourself and thinking otherwise.  
LCRL: I don’t need someone who preaches at me or kills innocent civilians if they get in the crossfire. I need someone who wants to kill the right targets.  
CAZH: There’s more to this life than your job, Eren. The sooner you start making real connections here the sooner you’ll be happy again.  
CAZH: And now I have to go check on your good buddy Armin. I think he got access to something he shouldn’t have again and I don’t have time for rogue fungi messing up my systems.  
CAZH: You’d better apologise to Levi, puppy!  
LCRL: Goodbye, Captain._  
  
Shaking his head, he sighed and looked up from the desk as if he hadn’t been deep in conversation to find Levi still eating, still looking troubled. He swallowed and pushed the thought that it was somehow his fault away, shaking his head and glaring at Hanji’s last message before flicking the monitor off so that he didn’t have to look at it anymore.  
None of this was even his problem if that email to Erwin had the effect that he wanted it to, or rather, that he was expecting. By tomorrow he’d be reassigned.  
  
“If you didn’t want me for anything, sir, I’ll be leaving you to get on with your day.” he announced, keeping the ‘And the rest of your life, because hopefully that’s the last you have to see of me.’ thought silent as he resisted the urge to smile. Looking too happy would probably give himself away.  
  
"Not needed you since I left you in the training room, kid." Eren frowned, rounding the desk. That stung at him more than he wanted to admit it. "What were you even doing on there? I know it's slightly quicker than the ones downstairs but..."  
"Hanji messaged you about lunch and I got talking to her after I told her you'd already gone to get food."  
"Was that all you were using it for?" _  
_ "And a game or two." Eren replied, intensely grateful that Levi was paying too close attention to his food to bother observing him closely enough to catch out the awkward, nervous posture that would have given his lie away.  
"Couldn't you have spoken to her on your own computer? Sure she'd have been easy enough to find."  
  
Eren shrugged, all too happy to see himself out, intending to go and find Armin to make sure both that Hanji didn't kill him and that he ate something at a sensible time of day rather than putting it off in order to finish something. It wasn't just Levi who needed the time to think - Eren was currently getting his head around the fact that the Lance Corporal was essentially a world war veteran. Or halfway to it, at least. He found himself wondering what Levi's reaction to living through the Cold War would have been. Wondering what his squad had been like. That was something else he needed to ask Armin about.  
  
He got halfway to Armin's desk before he realised that he'd left the IM window open, so Levi would still be able to see the messages he'd sent, but then he realised that he didn't care if he read them or not. What he'd typed to Hanji was exactly what he would have told Levi if he asked, so what did it matter? He was studiously avoiding the fact that he'd been stupid enough to let his guard down around Levi as much as he had. He wasn't 14 anymore and he was supposed to be able to reign in the urge to just kiss people whenever he felt like it. Although he guessed it had been deeper than that. Of course he found Levi attractive and he was perfectly capable of seperating the Lance Corporal he didn’t want to hunt with from Levi, the person he looked up to but didn't want to risk getting much closer to. It seemed like he'd finally found someone as stubborn as himself in the older nephilim who just refused to let him go. And it was annoying.  
  
"Hi Eren, you're early, aren't you? I thought Levi was sparring with you for most of today?" Armin greeted, seeming appreciative of his presence regardless.  
Throwing himself into the chair at his own desk, he shook his head and flashed the blond a grin.  
"Nah, I think he's done with me now. At least for a while."  
Armin sighed and chose not to ask. He knew what that look meant.  
"So.. Lunch?"  
  
*****  
  
Eren barely got the warning of Armin’s expression changing from open to worried before he felt the yank at his collar, Levi making quite an intimidating sight when he was in full hunting gear, full array of combat knives and handguns clinking from the harness straps across his chest and thighs under the long black coat, and actually looked infuriated enough to do some serious damage. For a split second or two he wondered why.  
  
Then he remembered that he’d sent their Commander that email from Levi’s computer – this must have been the fallout. He’d thought that Levi would just take the opportunity to give up since it had seemed like he didn’t want to put up with any more of Eren’s ‘childishness’. It appeared not.  
  
Levi pulled him right up out of his chair, grip moving from his collar to secure around his wrist, and bodily dragged him back across the office floor, other nephilim moving out of their way like a school of fish adapting to avoid an invading predator as they watched and laughed behind their hands. Their attention wasn’t anything positive, he knew. People he wasn’t already familiar with took in his barely veiled disregard for authority, added it to his tendency to be sullen and waspish on hunts with strangers, and generally tended to decide they disliked him. Not that he cared too much – if his discussion with Levi had reminded him of anything, it was how very little he cared for the opinions of other people he wanted nothing to do with.  
  
His silence was like a storm brewing but it didn’t break until they entered the training room they had been using before. Still, Eren refused to flinch back as he pulled his boots and socks off as Levi did, so that they didn’t ruin the matting, since he evidently wanted to spar again. Or perhaps just take his frustration out on him. It wasn’t like Eren could claim innocence this time, even if he’d been of a mind to try.  
  
“You are such a… There is not even a _word_ for the complete and total immaturity you possess.” Levi muttered, scowling, and then sighed at him as he stepped out into the middle of the matting and turned to Eren, arms up and outstretched. “You clearly have a problem with me, that you hate me enough to drop me by _impersonating me_. Hurry up and get whatever the fuck it is out of your system. If this helps you then I’m not complaining.”  
  
for once Eren was just not interested in playing along until they argued. As he'd said to Hanji, he wasn't going to stop. If he stopped that meant he was agreeing to let Levi change him. And changing meant giving up the goals he'd set for himself when he agreed to try out this odd 'afterlife' of a sort. He could be useful to humanity with no attitude adjustment require as far as he was concerned, thank you very much.  
  
So he didn't get angry this time, adjusting the harness straps around his legs before walking to the centre of the matting himself, arms loosely folded and expression neutral, slight frown showing resigned annoyance.  
“I don't hate  _you._  Not you as a person, at least. I just can't work with you, we're not compatible fighters - you won't change at all, no matter what I think of your methods, and I won't change for you.” he replied, shrugging. “I can keep giving you the slip forever if that’s what it takes for you to give up on trying to get me to do anything differently.”  
  
It didn't matter to him how angry Levi was. The angrier the better, in fact, because then there was more chance that he'd give up the ghost because he was sick of trying to 'get through to him' or whatever misguided thoughts he was having by dragging him in here instead of letting him go and do his job with someone he could actually fight alongside.  
“I'm never going to give up kid, not quite my style when I'm invested.”  
“Of course.” Eren replied flatly. “Anything else, or can I go and do something useful aside from be lectured now?”  
“No. If we aren't hunting tonight we are training. You're stuck with me, whether you like it or not.”  
“Last time we 'trained' you walked out on me. Why do you expect anything different to happen now?”  
“Because last time we trained you kissed me. I expect your sexually frustrated ass to take this seriously.”  
Eren had to resist the temptation not to snort. He certainly wasn’t doing that again – he’d spent enough time wondering where the hell he’d got the stupid idea in the first place. Probably because if it had been Armin or Jean he’d been sparring with it would have got him his way.  
“And it was a stupid mistake I do not intend to repeat. I'm not interested in being anyone's rebound.”  
“Like fuck are you a rebound for me.” Levi looked away, making sure the weapons holstered against his body were still secure. " _you_  kissed me.”  
“Because I thought it would freak you out, yes.” Eren hissed, teeth gritted. “As I said, it was a mistake.”  
“As was you thinking you are a rebound for me. But if you think you're such a good choice for a round of rebound sex that your almost proud of it, then let's call the press, I'm sure your parents would be  _so_ proud of you for it.”  
  
“My parents wouldn’t be anything. They’re dead.” Eren replied bitterly, ignoring the few seconds of shock and almost-regret he saw flashing in Levi’s eyes before anger replaced them again.  
“And anything you do is not going to change that in the slightest. Revenge isn't all there is to live for.”  
“Makes me feel a whole lot better, though. There's nothing else here to live for, either. Not for me.” And that was all there was to it, really. He didn’t understand how it was so hard for Levi to grasp that he just wanted to be left in his comfort zone, even if that comfort zone was coffin-sized.  
“Bullshit. How can you not see you have reasons to keep on living?!”  
“My whole reason for agreeing to be here was revenge. Nothing else. I'm here to kill demons till one drops me, and that's all.”  
“There’s more to this life than that, Eren.”  
Eren’s only response to that was to eye him skeptically.  
“And I suppose you intend to teach me that? Like it’s supposed to help make anything better..”  
“I intend to _help_ … I’m not saying it’s going to make anything better. It  won’t. It’ll suck for years, decades probably, trust me.” Levi sighed again, unclipping the twin swords he usually had sheathed at his sides under his coat and then crossing to the benches, laying them flat in order to keep them out of the way. “It’s just about how you use that pain and how you handle it.” Eren watched him, teeth worrying at his lip as he tried not to think about it. He already knew he was handling his pain badly, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know nightmares and panic attacks weren’t the norm, or that pretending you weren’t having them unless anyone caught you in the process was a good way of living with his new reality – but what choice did he have? It was that or give up early, and he’d be damned if he ever gave up. “The longer you can keep yourself alive, the more time you have to kill demons.”  
  
As grim as the thought was, Eren had no intention of lasting decades. Not here. This wasn't a real life, after all, just a poor attempt at it while they spent all their time fighting behind the scenes so that human history could continue without being disrupted or overly meddled with from what they were kept informed it was supposed to be. The moment Levi brought up his parents he realised Armin must have told him about them. Mikasa wasn't around to and she was the only other person who knew. He didn't really mind Levi knowing but he hadn't expected him to actually bring them up in conversation like that. He was right, though, nothing he did was going to bring them back.  
  
"I'm not in any pain." he replied, trying and failing to sound anything but how hollow he really felt. "And even if I was, it doesn't matter in the long run. I'm not going to remember this life when I die again, so what's the point worrying about how much I get hurt?" he was talking to himself mostly, seating himself cross-legged on the matting until Levi wanted to do something else more active, his hands bunching in the folds of the deep red shirt in a self comforting motion as he stared emptily at off to the side, looking into a non-existent distance as he focused on his own thoughts.  
  
"Even if it's not pain your feeling, I know how you feel. I've been through that whole spectrum and you can't let it consume you. You still have a family here, even if you don't see you have yet. Arlert, Ackerman, hey even Kirschtein probably.” Eren seemed to withdraw further into himself at that, his frown deepening because using logic like that wasn't fair. He had put it all behind him by convincing himself that everyone would just get on fine without him. “They left you behind in one world, to find you here. Wouldn't you think they'd be devastated if something happened to you, don't you think?"  
It might hurt at first but he was pretty sure they could cope. Except now he was having to actually think about it.  
  
"They'd get over it. You've lost people and you're fine, they will be too." he replied, obviously a little sullen at how unfair it was to spring something like that on him. "I got over having to lose the versions of them that I knew before."  
And he had, more or less. Mikasa was more or less exactly the same and although this Armin was significantly closer to him than the previous one had been. Why, he didn't know, but he wasn't exactly complaining.  
"Besides, how is that relevant to my ability to do my job?"  
He didn't want to think about it anymore, because it was starting to seem more and more likely that Levi was genuinely interested in trying to work this out for a valid reason. Something he didn't want to believe any more than he wanted to think about Armin or Jean or Mikasa losing him because then he'd only be wondering why. He'd be convinced to stop trying to get back to a safe distance away from Levi. It was troubling.  
  
"Because when you accept it, you'll be better off. You have something better to fight for,  _people_  to fight for. A cause to better yourself through those you save and those you will go on to save, by staying alive for as long as you are able...” Now it was Levi who looked thoughtful, like he was reminiscing, and the idea that it might be about the special operations squad that Levi had lost, the squad he wasn’t supposed to know about but did because he’d looked at Levi’s file, made Eren feel a spike of sadness. “Instead of just mindless revenge that will satiate you for a short while and then all you'll have is emptiness...”  
  
"I don't want that to happen to someone who I think could go the distance with the right people at his side, and I'm by no means saying that I would be one of them here." Levi smirked, the gesture small and knowing as he tilted his eyes up to the roof away from the wall they’d been fixed to save Eren having to hold his eye. "I wasn't lying to you, when I said you had potential. I just think you need help finding it within yourself and I'm offering to be the person that helps. I don't want to see you lose that chance."  
  
Fuck. He wanted to argue, but he couldn't. Levi sounded like he was speaking about pursuing revenge from personal experience and although he could already guess who it was that had persuaded him otherwise, but he wasn't going to comment on it.  
 Not anymore.  
"So you're just doing this out of the kindness of your heart after I spent so long fucking you around? That's either foolish of you or hard to believe." He was still resigned, annoyed, but he was looking at Levi now instead of trying to isolate himself.  
Which probably seemed like progress.  
  
He didn't want to, but he could already feel himself giving in to the idea that he should at least give Levi a chance. If he didn't like it he could always backtrack to how he had been before. They didn't have to see eye to eye for him to get useful information out of him. Useful skills out of him. That could work out.  
"Whatever. Fine. Either way its not like I can do anything about it and the longer we fuck around the less hunting I can actually do."  
  
His arms dropped from around his sides and his smile seemed to revive a little to the grin he'd been wearing since before Levi walked in and grabbed him by the collar to drag him down here. It was clear given how quickly his entire countenance had changed that he was putting up a cheerful front to an extent, but he was back to being more like he had been in the cafe they'd gone for breakfast in when Levi had ended up seeing his sketchbook. He still hadn't settled on a sketch of Levi that he liked yet, but it looked like he had plenty of time and opportunities for inspiration yet to come as far as that was concerned so it wasn't really a problem.  
"So what do I have potential for, aside from running away from you?" he joked.  
  
“Anything.” Levi’s one word reply left him shocked for a few seconds but he quickly shook himself free of the moment, reminding himself to be skeptical. “For now though, I just hope you can learn." He rolled his shoulders slightly, and Eren almost smirked. It was true that their hunting gear was a pretty good balance between protective and restrictive, but he wasn’t wearing his so he had a slight advantage in terms of freedom of movement. “And have patience in not hunting for a little while. Erwin won't let us until he's approved that we can get on in the field. No pressure though Jaeger.”   
  
Eren shrugged lightly, shifting his weight from side to side a little and trying to loosen himself up a little and stretch so that he could be ready to move in the event that Levi didn’t give him much time to prepare and just launched at him, which was as likely to happen as anything else at this point.  
  
"Now it's up to you. We can either stay in here lock the door so we can spar in peace and go a few rounds, or go get some food."  
"I wouldn't worry about that. I'm a fast learner." Eren replied.  
Or rather, he was when he actually intended to listen to whatever Levi thought he needed to know, which he hadn't last time. Last time he had been too busy making the point that he'd been through basic training and didn't need any of it again.  
  
They'd both got geared up to fight, so it seemed like it would probably be a bit of a waste if they didn't spar for at least a short while. Getting fully geared up to fight took enough time and he figured he could actually learn some useful things if he really wanted to. Levi had been through either overseeing or partnering with a lot of different people and they must have had a lot of varying approaches that Eren didn't know about.  
  
"Since we're already here it seems better to at least try and spar for a while. I'll try not to spend the whole fight dodging you this time." he added, going through all his usual warm up stretches and figuring that at some point he'd probably just watch and see if Levi did his the same, and then try and steal anything useful.  
  
Levi warmed himself up too before turning to lock the door so that they wouldn’t be disturbed, the sight causing Eren to frown a little before remembering that the balcony door would still be unlocked, so he had an escape route if he needed it. It had been hammered into him as part of their training – _always have an escape route. Always know where your exits and entrances are. Don’t let yourself be pinned in a corner with no way out._  
  
"No rules this time. Come at me with your best shot."  
"Really?" Eren replied, allowing himself a real moment of surprise then. Did Levi even know what he was giving him leeway for by saying that? "No rules?"  
"That's what I said Jaeger." Levi sounded confident, but he still wasn’t sure this was a good idea. No rules meant he was trying to get Eren to really, honestly go for him in all likelihood. To see if he could still be controlled when he was angry, and that made an insidious curl of panic twinge through him. What if he hurt Levi and didn’t know when to stop? What if Levi wasn’t fast enough to stop him? He highly doubted it, because he trusted Levi’s abilities even if his trust in Levi’s morals had fallen, but still.. what if?  
He couldn’t think of anything worse. “We are in a building where there is quite he number of medical personnel. Give me your best shot.”  
  
This time Eren’s approach was completely different. He had been completely disinterested in their first fight, but he figured that now it would be more like sparring with Jean. Back when they actually used to spar, that was. Now they usually stuck to gaming or nights out drinking with the rest of the people in the 104 th generation of new nephilim. Yes, Levi was more experienced than Jean was, but they seemed to approach situations in similar ways from what he’d seen so far. Jean had always been the person leading the few times they’d hunted together. Really the largest difference was that Jean thought the same way about getting innocent people involved as he did, and also knew to get the fuck out of the way once Eren closed in on his target.  
  
Although Levi had said no rules, he wasn’t showing his wings, which Eren took to mean that he wanted to fight on the ground at the moment. He also hadn’t gone for any weapons yet, despite mentioning that they had medical personnel on call to patch them up should they seriously hurt each other.  
  
He couldn’t afford to restrict his expectations to Jean’s limits just because they seemed like similar fighters, though, so he hung back for a while. Tried and keep an even head – and it showed, the two of them circling but not making any rushed actions. Levi made no attempt to hit him first although he looked like he had his own frustrations to work out, obviously waiting for Eren to come to him as he’d said. Eren didn’t want to (but had already figured that he had no choice) because he could predict the actions of most of the people he sparred with in a fight. He couldn’t predict Levi.  
  
Really, if he’d still been in training, this would have been an exciting opportunity to test himself out, to see if he could push his limits, and he was trying to think about it like that. Trying to push what he already knew about Levi from hunting with him to the back of his mind. Trying to just see it as a normal fight instead of picking up Armin’s habit of assessing a training scenario and how to get the most out of it before he went in.  
“Thought you weren’t trying to avoid me this time?”  
  
He took a deep breath and then stopped thinking, allowing his instinct to take over. Allowing himself to just make careful, tentative attempts at getting a hit in. Levi was far too fast for him, though, dodging and retaliating quicker than Eren could block. It seemed like he could hit a lot harder, too, every punch or kick knocking the teen back a step, incrementally chipping away at his patience.  
Eren yelped in shock as a kick swept his ankles out from under him and he landed on his back, breath leaving him in one soft ‘oof’.  
“Still waiting, Eren.”  
  
The next half an hour was spent much the same way, Eren’s patience degraded more and more even when they advanced to incorporating use of their wings. It didn’t really help matters as it greatly added to Levi’s speed and proved a minor distraction. He was slowly getting more and more sick of this. Their time was becoming a repeating cycle of being floored and then told to get back up. Floored and then told to get back up.  
  
Rolling his shoulders, Eren could almost feel his temper snap like overstressed wiring at Levi’s completely unmoved expression when he flipped himself back to his feet for what felt like the fifteenth time. Levi didn’t look like he’d been extending himself at all yet aside from a barely-there sheen of sweat on his skin while Eren was obviously getting tired. Still, tiredness only tended to make him more frustrated. The teen paused for a moment, landing perfectly balanced on the ledge up on the second floor viewing balcony as he had before, his fingers snapping at one of the black leather belts around his thigh as his face set into a heavy frown.   
  
“Fuck this.” the words were all but growled under his breath and then he tilted his head to the side, a barely-there smirk curling his lips, sea-green eyes reflecting the depth of his spiking anger as he pulled one of his hunting knives from the sheath strapped to the belt at his thigh that he’d just been tugging on.  
  
It felt a lot easier just to let his anger guide him, his worry that he might go too far long since eroded by his frustration. The only thing he was focused on was reading Levi’s aura through his barely used sixth sense for them. Typically the only reason a demon never got away from him was because he latched on to their aura and then kept hitting it until the aura disappeared, not paying attention to anything else and letting his body do the work without his brain getting involved too much. It was harder to do that to another nephilim. Or so he’d assumed.  
  
Levi was easily able to see him coming and avoid his drop back down to the floor level, but he wasn’t expecting the change in behaviour because it was like Eren was a completely different person when he fought like this. He wasn’t even trying to block anything, evading anything he could sense incoming and breathing through the hits that drew blood, given that Levi had mirrored Eren’s choice of weapon as soon as he’d seen him go for his knife. It wasn’t long before Levi managed to floor him again, but this time Eren cushioned the fall with his empty hand and twisted, cuffing the older nephilim over the back of the head with his wing to knock him off balance and then taking a grip around the back of his knees with his ankles and tugging sharply forwards.  
  
Levi hit the floor and Eren rolled, on him with a feral growl of anger in seconds as he grabbed the hand holding his knife and pinned it in the small of his back, taking advantage of the few moments of being shocked and winded in order to get his knee in between Levi’s wings, keeping him pinned face down to the floor. He still wasn’t really thinking as his knife slid under his throat, feeling Levi tip his head up to avoid the blade cutting into his skin too much as the grip on his wrist tightened to an almost painful degree, Eren’s weight centred on his hips to stop him pushing up too far or trying to twist too much to pitch him off.  
  
“Is  _that_  close enough, Corporal?” the words were the same low, harsh growl, and Eren pressed in harder with the knife, but it was only a few seconds before he realised what he was doing and _who_ he was about to slit the throat of.  
  
Sheer panic replaced the easy, simple automation of moves that had been trained enough to stem from muscle memory as he saw blood. Then it hit him in the chest, the by now familiar feeling of a panic attack rendering him near helpless as his vision began to blur and his world receded to trying to take in shaking breaths around the screaming, whirling mix of dread, anxiety and almost knee-jerk disgust at himself squeezing his chest and throat in a vice-like grip.  
  
“Wait.. no.. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t.. I nearly..” Then he dropped the blade as if it were red hot and shuffled backwards like a scared child, getting to his feet and backing off till he hit the wall and could sink against one of the benches around the sides of the room in an attempt to give himself space to breathe. It felt like he was choking, dizzy as he tried desperately to draw in breath and only managing shallow pants of air.  
The last thing he’d wanted Levi to see was him lose control of himself like this and of course, it was the first thing that had happened as soon as he’d really been pushed. His lack of self control was ridiculous and he knew it, pulling his hands through his already messy hair and sighing shakily as he stared worriedly at the floor and tried to concentrate on taking deep breaths. This was far from his first rodeo, after all, he knew more or less how to combat them by now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t _scary._  
  
"Eren..." He could just about make sense of Levi’s footsteps as he got a little closer, but didn’t look up. It wouldn’t help.. and although he knew this didn’t make him weak, he didn’t want Levi’s attention like this. Didn’t want Levi to realise just how much of the attitude he put out to the world was sheer bravado with nothing to back it up. "Come on, that was fine." He stayed with a bearable distance away, luckily, panting a little in an effort to regain his own breath – although in his case it was due to exertion and not because he felt like his ribcage was being slowly crushed with sheer fear at the thought of what he’d done, Eren not wanting to look up incase he saw the blood dripping from the cut on Levi’s neck, all the thoughts of what might have happened if he didn’t stop in time digging away at his mind. "Honestly. Your form was excellent, your pin and hold were great. We just need to work on you channelling your frustration a little less... murderous.” Levi seemed to wait a few moments before speaking again, sounding unsure how to best deal with him when he was like this, but somehow not scared. Which helped more than he knew. "You still with me, Jaeger?"  
  
"Yeah. I'm still here." Eren replied, his breathing rate starting to slow again as he mentally reprimanded himself for being so stupid, carefully timing his deliberate, slow breaths to kick himself out of his body’s fight-or-flight reflex. Levi was obviously still fine, just winded, and he'd stopped, so what was the problem? Why was he still shaking? Still freaking out? Was he that fucking pathetic that when he'd actually been able to achieve his objective he was getting panicky over it rather than being self-satisfied?  
  
The positivity of the things being said went completely in one ear and out the other because he was so focused on beating himself up, still clearly troubled and mired in self doubt even though he looked up so that at least he was meeting Levi's gaze instead of staring at the floor like it had been an out and out failure. Which to his mind it had been, really.  
"I don't do  _'less murderous'_ , I'm afraid." he replied, his voice still a little shaky. "What you see is what you get. Now maybe you know why I couldn't really stay partnered with Armin for too long, I guess."  
  
There was a brief moment of hope, too, although he left it unsaid, that maybe now Levi would understand why he had the approach to hunting that he did. When all you could guarantee was that once you started close quarters fighting with a demon was that either you were going to die or it was, it became a little more important to pick your battles extremely carefully. If you valued the life of the innocent person still trapped inside the body the demon was making use of at all. With Eren it was all or nothing – either he let the guilt at the thought of stamping out a life stay his hand, render him useless, or he dehumanised his opponent completely and let his anger tear it apart while his guilt looked the other way for a while.  
  
"Do you like Chinese, Jaeger?"  
"Uh.. yes. But what's that got to do with sparring, sir?" Eren replied, spacing out his words between carefully calculated breaths against the thudding of his heartbeat in his ears. It still almost drowned Levi out.  
"Everything. How about Italian? Not had that in weeks..." Levi shuffled a little further back, then, leading back against his arms on the matting to give Eren more space and crossing his legs under him.  
"Well.. I'll never say no to cheesy garlic bread, I guess." he replied, confused and rather aware of the fact that Levi hadn’t answered his question.  
"Just garlic bread or would you have something with it?"  
"Depends on whether I could eat a horseface or not?"A small smirk crept onto Levi’s face but somehow he didn’t think it was anything to do with the crappy pun. "Why'd you ask?"  
"Curiosity. Indian is my go to food though if I want take out. You got a favourite type of food to get as take out Jaeger? If you haven't, why the heck not?"  
"Because I don’t watch what I eat that closely. If food's good then it's good... I'm usually a bit busy.” Eren replied, sighing. "You're going to make me hungry."  
"Well, what do you feel like going to have?"  
"Probably noodles.” It felt like the tightness in his chest was slowly receding, and the more brain power he devoted to thinking about the food, the less he was focusing on his own panic. “Not very messy so I can get back to drawing relatively quickly when I go home."  
"How about..." Levi glanced over at the still locked door before turning to meet his eyes for a few moments, and he almost caught himself smiling, his panic banished as long as he could avoid looking at the blood still dripping from the older nephilim’s neck and dying his shirt deeper red. "You get changed, showered, and I take you for some noodles?"  
“Alright.”  
  
The two of them left the training room together, Eren’s hands still shaking with as he hit the button for his floor as he tried to straighten out what just happened in his mind. He wasn’t sure whether Levi had talked him down on purpose, but the more he thought about it as he scrubbed himself down under the shower, the more he was convinced that he had. Because it had worked and he hadn’t even been thinking about it. He’d been so busy wondering why the hell Levi had been asking him about food all of a sudden when they were supposed to be training, the telltale locking up that the stressed out feeling was triggering to choke him up melted into the background completely.  
  
And now for some reason he was perfectly happy to go for food with him. He didn’t know what Levi was trying to do but he had little choice except to go along with it. He’d agreed to now. He just had to hope Armin might have a bit of advice to keep his mind in the right place. Because he still wasn’t happy about this. Whatever had happened when for some reason Levi hadn’t freaked out that Eren had come very close to hurting him. The only person it seemed to strike as odd was himself, and he wasn’t used to that at all.   
  
He was heading to Levi’s office but he could always ring Armin on his way up there, since he didn’t really have time stop off on his floor to swing by and actually talk face to face.  
“Armin, I’m confused.”  
“Hi to you too. What’s he done to you now?”  
“It’s more.. what he didn’t do.” Eren replied, biting his lip. “I flipped on him and he didn’t bat an eyelid, everyone else has lost their shit. Remember what Shadis was like that time he head-butted me and I dropkicked him?” That had been an interesting afternoon.  
“That’s cute.” Armin was too busy giggling for a few minutes at the imagery nonetheless and Eren didn’t know whether to be offended or just laugh too. Commenting on how cute his anxieties were wasn’t helping at all. “But why is this a problem?”  
“Because I thought we were supposed to be fighting with each other, and now suddenly we’re going out for noodles like it’s no big thing that I nearly did him grievous bodily harm during a fight that was just to train? Am I missing something here?”  
“Didn’t you want to get to know Levi, the  _person,_  even if you didn’t want to hunt with Levi the  _Lance Corporal_?”  
“Yes.” he frowned at Levi’s office door. “Yes I did.”  
“Then go and get to know him. Do you need any more of an excuse, or am I missing something here?”  
“Yeah, funny. Seeya later. I’ll let you know how badly I cock it up.”  
“You won’t. Speak soon, Eren.”  
  
Then he pushed the office door open with a slight smile on his face, staying by the entryway to wait for Levi to be ready to go since he didn’t really think the older nephilim would want to sit around if they were planning on food.  
"Ready when you are."


	7. Clarity - 7: Neon Heart.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took much longer than I thought it would. Still, have fun with some drunken cuteness!
> 
> Music for this chapter is Porn Star Dancing, by My Darkest Days. ;)  
> As usual, find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. Currently Firrie and I are beta-ing each other's chapters(ish) so please excuse any mistakes. Levi's POV can be found here - http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813

 The walk was spent in quiet, thoughtful silence by both of them, Eren's mind mostly occupied by trying to digest what exactly had gone on because although he had expected to eventually be pushed as far as he had been, he hadn't expected Levi to be completely okay with him losing his focus (or focusing too much, or whatever it was that he did) to the point where he nearly actually hurt him.  
  
The place was one he'd found while wandering looking for new ideas one night after a particularly harsh few days training, and he'd just sat in the far corner with a drink and his sketchbook for a while just drawing strangers before he ordered any food. After that he just kept coming back to draw the new faces that he saw coming and going every so often.  
It was relaxing and it meant he could just stop thinking for a while, and it wasn't really until they'd both ordered (because he already knew what he was having by now without needing a menu to choose) that he spoke up again. Rather than worrying about it he was just going to ask and have done.  
"Why didn't it bother you? When I.." he paused, swallowed around the sudden dryness in his throat as he thought of all the reactions he'd had in the past, before shaking his head a little as if to clear it. "Heh.. I guess I'm not used to being the surprised one after something like that happens. Everyone else is usually shocked when I get like that.."  
  
There was also the fact that he had to somehow work an apology into this conversation because he did feel like a bit of a pain in the ass. And, somewhat, like he owed Levi more of an explanation than he was likely to get just from reading his file or from anywhere else other than himself. It probably seemed to him that he was just being a problem with no reason other than he felt like it right now and that wasn’t really the case.  
Or not the whole case, at least...  
  
“Because I told you not to hold back.” Levi placed his jacket and other miscellaneous belongings down next to him as he made himself comfy at the table, glancing out of the window that they’d been placed next to. When their drinks arrived, his was only a glass of water, and he took a quick sip before expertly pulling his chopsticks apart with a quiet snap, playing with them idly between his fingers before setting them down again. It was a little more unnerving to watch him do when you considered that he’d probably snapped spinal cords with the same blank expression. “I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t. You wouldn’t have hurt me any more than you did.”  
“I got close enough to it to give myself a panic attack.” Eren replied, sighing. “That should tell you just how close a thing it was.”  
“Good thing it happened in a controlled environment rather than out in the field, then, isn’t it?”  
“It wouldn’t happen out there…” or at least, he _hoped_ it wouldn’t. Now he wasn’t so sure, “but I guess now you know why Jean and Armin always got the hell out of the way. Just incase.”  
“You realise that’s not likely with me right?” Levi asked, a small frown on his face.  
“Yeah, I noticed.” Eren griped, taking a quick drink from his own glass of water and realising he was being bitter again. “Sorry I guess I never explained my reasons for anything to you.”  
“Yeah, ‘personal things’…” Levi replied, his eyes trailing from Eren’s face down to his glass of water for a few moments as his frown persisted. “Right?”  
  
"Yeah." Eren bit his lip for a moment then, it taking him several moments of fidgeting to figure out how to word what he wanted to say. "Look.. I'm not going to preface this with anything. You're right. I might be cocky and stubborn but you're right and I was childish earlier on, and I'm sorry for that." he said, his honestly showing clearly in his expression as he fell still and breathed out slowly, evidently glad he'd got that out without screwing it up.  
  
Levi looked up as he apologised, his frown noticeably lessening, but they were interrupted by the arrival of their food before he could form a response. He left off for a moment in order to scoop up his chopsticks, expertly fishing out a piece of chicken with the kind of agility Eren could never muster. Didn’t have a clue how to use the damn things.  
“You don’t have to explain anything. But thank you, for apologising.”  
He shifted his attention from crowd watching to eating, diving into his bag for his sketchbook. Thankfully, all he needed to eat chicken and sticky rice was a fork so he could eat with one hand and draw with the other, randomly sketching headshots of the people sat around the place eating and talking with no awareness of their existence. It was inevitable that at some point he'd go back to sketching Levi though, mostly sketches of his wings now that he'd seen them a little closer up.  
  
"I should have apologised before." Eren replied, sighing as he brought a forkful of chicken and rice up to his mouth without looking at it, roughly sketching the gentle curve and outline of one of Levi's wings before going back to add a second layer of depth to it. "Never even told you about my parents, did I?"  
"And you don't have to. Not if you don't want, don't feel obligated because you held a knife to my throat, kid."  
"This has nothing to do with today." Eren replied, waving it off a little with the fingers till twined around his pencil. "It's been creeping up on me for a while. Everyone else I've partnered with, I told them everything about why I have the hang-ups that I have. But I was too pissed off to tell you. That can't continue."  
Levi glanced at the sketchbook Eren was drawing in but he continued sketching anyway, given that it seemed no objects were going to be voiced this time. He must have been expecting it from Eren a little more this time.  
"I'll listen, but you really don't have to, Eren. I know it must be difficult."  
  
"I didn't say I was going to tell you the hard things." Eren replied, his words carefully chosen now to avoid the sharp edges they might catch on in his mind. "Just the things that matter to understand why I do what I do."  
“So, what? Am I supposed to guess? Or is this an open Q &A?”  
Eren chuckled at that. "Sure, I'm good with a Q&A." He'd been trying to collect his thoughts but it was usually more useful to allow the other person to follow their own path of inquiry based on what they wanted to know about him the most. If he couldn't answer it comfortably he just.. well, didn't. He was completely okay with the idea.  
Levi seemed to hesitate for a moment, his chopsticks hovering above the soup and noodles left in his bowl, before he let out a quiet titter.  
"Well for one I don't want to know about your parents, or what it is that makes you throw small tantrums more often than not and stamp your feet."  
  
"Too personal? Or did you already guess?" Eren asked quickly to cover his shock at that not being one of Levi's first questions. It was true that most people who knew him already knew his parents were something to do with why he was here just not the specifics so it wasn't a stretch to think that Levi knew a little bit about them.  
He was steadfastly ignoring the 'small tantrums' part for now, concentrating more on sketching and biting his tongue to avoid commenting on it.  
“Already guess? It’s not hard to guess that someone death is relevant to how they are after it. For us, anyway.”  
"True." Eren shivered noticeably, having to put his pencil down and take a deep breath in and out, eyes closing for a minute. "They were innocents, and what happened to them.. yeah. That's why I don't touch innocent people, no matter the circumstances."  
"That's where you and I differ, I suppose. Though I can understand why. I remember when I was exactly the same." He smiled a small, barely there smile as he licked his lips a little.  
"Must have been a long time ago." Eren mused wryly, going back to his sketch as he started to add more of Levi to it than just his wings. He knew how long ago it was – given that Levi had already told him once how long he’d been around for – but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease. "I don't imagine you ever needed my level of anger management though. Anything else you want to know?"  
  
“Quite some time… yes.” Levi paused there, and it was a few moments before he ventured anything else, which was a little surprising. He would have thought that given the amount of new people he must get to know in his time, he already had a few things spring to mind automatically. It seemed that wasn’t the case. “What was it like?”  
  
Eren let out a low hum. “Actually.. I grew up in this state, in this kind of time period. Just not in this world, so how I lived is pretty much what you're seeing now. I went to college, though. My dad wanted me to be a doctor. S'how I met Jean, we're both from the same world.”  
  
Levi nodded a little, the information seemingly new to him as he took a moment to think it over. "I didn't realise you were both from the same world. must be nice, having someone you used to know here. Well." Eren was sure he’d mentioned it at some point but apparently not. Up until this point they had been a bit too busy arguing to really pay that much attention, really. "I mean, you probably know the majority of the Nephilim, but someone who you actually knew before hand."  
  
"Yeah." Eren sighed. "Jean.. he gets it. He doesn't expect me to be someone else. Armin, Mikasa.. everyone else remembers a different me. And it's hard dealing with that sometimes."  
"Then you should be alright with me, shouldn't you?"  
"Seems so. Judging from everything so far it's like you never met me. Then again, I never met you either. Your name was on my timetable as lecturer when I went back but.. well. I never went back."  
“Lecturer?” A familiar smirk formed on Levi’s face as he set aside his chopsticks for his napkin. “I’d never see myself teaching full time, for sure. But no, I never met you in my timeline.”  
  
The brunet blinked at that, leaning back and looking up with his head tilted slightly to the side, gaze somewhat skeptical.  
"You'd never see yourself teaching? What the hell do you think you do for us apart from keep us alive then?" he laughed a little at that. "You've taught everyone a lot." He showed very little surprise at the idea that Levi had never met him in his own timeline. Maybe given their age difference they'd just never had a reason to interact.  
”That’s different.” He replied, pushing their plates aside to be collected and picking up the dessert menu. “I don’t have to be sat at a desk in a stuffy room. I can be out in the field. When the kids let me, obviously.”  
  
"Is that a subtle dig at me by any chance?" Eren deadpanned, flicking over his sketchbook page to start afresh. "Oh well. This city definitely has a better nightlife than college so that's one reason it's good to be dead I guess."  
"Maybe a small one. I wouldn't know on the nightlife. I didn't do that before I was killed, never mind after."  
  
"Maybe you should come and find out what it's like for a night, then." Eren replied, smirking at him a little over his page as the idea gave him more things to draw. Perhaps later when Levi wasn't likely to see, though. "Although I hear Hanji goes out sometimes, so there's a precedent even if you're old."  
  
“I’ll let that comment slide, kid, given everything is older than you.” Levi tossed the dessert menu at him then, it landing on top of the page he’d just started on, but the brunet ignored it – he’d been here enough times to know what was on the relatively short list of desserts. “But I’m fine, thanks. I’d rather stay in and watch a movie. Hanji gave up a long time ago on getting me to go out every Saturday night.”  
  
"I'm not a--" Eren paused, realising there was little point as he'd started it by calling Levi old and then sighed and smiled, shaking his head a little. "Nevermind. So why ask me about my past? Does that kind of thing interest you or was it just in general?"  
The older nephilim hesitated again for a moment, averting his eyes from the sketchbook again and looking around the restaurant. "Just in general."  
  
"Okay." Levi's hesitation was slightly cute but he pushed the thought away, neatly setting his pencil down at the bottom of his next completed sketch. This one was more like what he was after but he still wasn’t satisfied enough to call it a final product. "For the record, it's kinda Jean's fault. For the first few weeks if it was bleeding sulphur it died. He's the one that made me cautious."  
"Nothing wrong with being cautious. Did you want dessert?"  
"Sure." Eren shrugged loosely, more interested in their conversation and fully aware that dessert was an excuse to prolong it. "Come to think, Jean is probably the reason I should stop going out. He can dare me to do some pretty stupid things for $25 when I'm drunk and Armin won't stop him now either, he just hangs back and saves the evidence so he can blackmail me later." he sighed, drinking more water. "With friends like mine who needs enemies, heh."  
  
The last time they'd made that kind of bet, they'd both been alive and Jean had got Eren to sneak into a sorority house and steal a random list of items to leave in the girl's pool. Nearly got him lynched, but he'd damn well done it, and he was still proud. Jean hadn't been able to beat his record yet. He supposed now they were dead, it was a bit pointless, though. Providing something didn't get them out of the blue they had much too long a time on their hands to make keeping score fun anymore.  
  
"Yeah, which is why I don't go out. I can be doing with less of that. I'd rather talk to someone who's sober, to be honest." He waited slightly until someone came close, and they were soon ordering their desserts. "Sounds like you're an impressionable drunk."  
Eren's mind was thoroughly occupied with his upcoming strawberry mochi ice-cream to stop it straying to the implications that surrounded drunken Levi. That way madness lay.  
  
"Don't blame me, it's the done thing now." Eren replied playfully, shrugging. "You go out and have a good time. And by that I mean get wrecked and wake up next to someone you don't know the next morning.. just.. not in Vegas, or you end up waking up married as well as with a hangover." he teased. "So goes the urban legend, anyway."  
"Because waking up next to someone you don't know in the morning is a good thing?"  
  
"Can be. Depends what the night before was like." Eren replied, shrugging. "It's a good thing because if you wake up and its awkward you can just leave, no pressure. But if you like the person you can find out more about them and arrange to meet them again. You don't have to invest energy in something that might not work just to mess around. But I take it that's now how things were done where or when you came from." He knew, of course, but he was still happy letting Levi go without the knowledge that he'd read his file when he wasn't supposed to have.  
  
"No... You could see a woman’s calves." He smiled slightly, folding his arms on the tables surface. "You just didn't pick up random people in bars. It was disrespectful. You courted, you treated them with respect. At least, you did where I came from. The rest of the world had different ideas."  
"That's fair enough." Eren replied, nodding. "I get that it doesn't look like there's any respect involved if you compare it to something as old as 'courting', but.. generally, there is. Or there should be."  
"It's still spoken of today, or at least it is here. It might be an old tradition but people still do it." He looked as identical desserts were placed before them both, Levi having gone for the only strawberry option as well. "Whatever interests you, I suppose."  
  
Levi was right on that front, only as far as Eren was aware people called it 'dating'. He was really going to have to do more research on Levi's time period in order to get on with him - he seemed, like Mikasa, to be one of those people whose habits had never got used to modernity even if the rest of their life had.  
  
"See, all this is telling me is you like it when people put thought into their date activities. That's pretty much what courting was. Is. Isn't it?" Eren asked, attacking one of his balls of ice-cream with enthusiasm.  
"It just shows people are interested, and it's not just meaningless sex, like you have just described."  
"I think our opinions differ on 'meaningless'. But sure. You're right." Now that he was thinking it about it he was surprised that it had been him that was chosen. "It's bugging me though. Why me. Jean would have been a better fit for you, you're actually more like him."  
"Just because you're like someone, doesn't mean it's a good fit. Sometimes it's best not to pair with someone so similar. Things go wrong, that way."  
"I'd love to know what hasn't gone wrong about us so far, in that case." Eren challenged, smirking a little as his green eyes flickered with amusement.  
"If you are referring to us, I think it's because we aren't alike. That and you don’t seem to want to give it enough of a chance."  
  
"Since it's honest hour.. its because your method sucks for my hunting style. It's never going to stop sucking - and its easier if I go back to how I was." Eren replied, sighing a little bitterly as he pushed his empty dish back and stretched, packing his sketchbook back into his bag. "Doesn't mean we can't still chat. My little 'don’t meet your heroes' rule has been thoroughly trounced by now, there's no point still being sore over that."  
"If there's no point, why act like it, Jaeger?"  
  
Eren sighed, thankfully already quite ready to leave as he got up and followed Levi out of the café as he paid up and left, evidently annoyed. This was what happened when he just talked without thinking about it or keeping things back, eventually people got angry and left. And he was alone again.  
  
It didn't take him all that long to catch up to Levi, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder for a brief few seconds before receding into himself again, thrusting his hands into his coat pockets and falling into step beside him. Something about Levi right at that moment seemed small and saddened, and all he wanted was to make that go away. He hadn't been like that while they were eating, he'd been open and relaxed and about as happy as Eren had seen him get, and he wanted that to continue because he'd never really seen it before.   
  
Guilt twisted his expression for a moment or two before he pushed it down and tried for something more centred and calm.  
"Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't... really mean it like that." he said, sighing. "I'm not saying what you're doing is pointless. I just... I don't want to hurt you. I don't even want to run the risk."  
"It's fine. I'm not some china doll so don't worry about it."  
"I know you're not, I've spent long enough in training using your level of skill as something to aim for once I started having a fighting chance against Mikasa." he replied, shivering a little as his hands clenched to fists inside his coat pockets. "But what use am I if what happened while we were sparring happens while we have demons on us? Or Legion? If I have a panic attack out there I'm fucked and then you're alone."  
"You won't. You even said yourself it wouldn't happen while hunting. Hanji and her team takes people's health and wellbeing rather seriously. If you weren't suitable to be out hunting, you wouldn't be. You'd be stuck in a desk job.”  
  
Eren remained quiet for a long time, his expression subdued while he struggled to put the fact that he just didn't trust himself into words. Yes, it was very unlikely. But it was still a possibility.  
"Then it's a good job I didn't lie on the psyche tests, heh." This time his quiet chuckle was entirely mirthless. "So what has you sad? You seemed okay before."  
"Nothing. I'm fine, and its a good job you didn't because if Hanji finds out you lied on her tests... Dread to think what she'll do."  
  
Eren shuddered at the thought before adopting a little bit more of a playful look as he glanced up at the skyline, the HQ building visible at the other end of the street now. "Is that an 'I'm actually fine' kind of I'm fine, or an 'I don’t do talking about feelings you shitty brat' kind of fine?" he joked.  
"Just drop it. I'm fine, alright?"  
  
"Alright. No chick-flick moments." he said, shrugging as he smiled widely. The only way he was going to make himself less antsy around Levi was by acting like himself and hoping Levi did the same, he guessed.  
"Good." His attention shifted towards the HQ building as they got closer, the structure now starting to tower over them. "Well, I've got work to do, so I'll see you around, Jaeger."  
"Oh.. I'll come too. I have something to do before I go home." Eren replied, keeping up instead of turning to fly off before they got any further away from the street he'd have had to take to get back to his apartment block.  
“Fair enough.” The rest of the walk to the entrance of HQ was in silence, Levi holding the door open for him before heading to the elevators, presumably to head up to his own floor, and Eren followed him inside one as the doors opened. “Which floor?”  
  
He remained silent, simply smiling and hoping that Levi wouldn’t mind what he had in mind happening all that much. He wasn’t completely ignorant of how much of a pain in the older nephilim’s side he’d been since they met for the first time, and if they were going to actually start working together more fluidly he felt like he had to address that.  
“Fine. Whatever.” Levi muttered, his brain clearly ticking onto other things as the rest of the time till their arrival was spent in silence, and he exited the lift as if on autopilot to head down the corridor toward his office, seemingly not paying attention when Eren went in the same direction, down to the kitchenette at the end of the hall.  
  
Eren heard Hanji coming before he saw her poke her head around the door to the kitchenette, this one slightly better furnished than most given it was on the floor that homed most of the upper level staff. He was hunched against the wall watching the kettle boil when he felt a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Eren, sweetie, you have to tell me how the date went." she said, poking his cheek for a minute or two before bouncing on her heels excitedly and setting about making herself a sandwich. He half suspected it was so she had a reason to talk to him for longer without making it look like she was here to grill him. "Levi is being extremely unhelpful and won’t talk to me."  
  
"It wasn't a date." Eren replied, blushing a little at the thought. Although if it had been a date he supposed it would have been a good one. They actually got along, and he couldn't argue with the idea that he enjoyed spending time with Levi and finding out about him when they didn't have a job to do. Shaking his head rapidly as if to clear the traitorous thoughts out, he frowned. Not a date. Stop thinking about it that way. "We ate noodles and we came home. Now I'm making him a cup of tea to thank him for putting up with my shit. That's all."  
  
Hanji smiled, fishing out Levi's favourite black tea brand from the top shelf of one of the overhead cupboards.  
"Then I suggest you make it in a thermos because he might be here for a long time yet, the damn workaholic."  
Eren snorted a little, because Hanji was no better, he didn't think he'd ever actually seen her leave. Maybe she didn't leave, and just slept in the floors that house barracks, who knew.  
"Okay, duly noted. Is he the milk and sugar type?"  
"Not for black tea, no." Hanji replied, tossing him a plastic lemon container from the fridge which he eyed suspiciously for a moment. "Try a little bit of lemon juice."  
"Thanks, Hanji."  
"Any time." Unwinding plastic wrap from her sandwiches, she took a quick bite, surveying him over the counter as he focused on making up Levi's tea and then pouring it into a thermos once it had had enough time to stew properly. "So what did you talk about?"  
"Sex." Eren felt a little bit amused when Hanji nearly choked on her mouthful of sandwich, but only a little. "My incompetence. How he doesn't do chick-flick moments. A whole range of topics. Is he always interested in people's past lives?"  
"He's interested in their different experiences is a better way of putting it, I think." she replied, shrugging. "In your case, you have an advantage. Aren't we in your time period right now?"  
"Yeah. And in my state, too. Odd coincidence." Eren replied, screwing a cap on the thermos and watching her. Hanji's mouth curved into a slow smirk as she swallowed another bite of food and nodded.  
"Yeah, odd coincidence." she echoed, picking up her lunchbox and then heading in the direction of the door. "Well, I won't keep you from Levi any more. Feel free to message me with further details any time, Eren."  
Eren sighed, but smiled anyway.  
"I don't think Levi would be too happy about that."  
  
Hanji's laughter could still be heard through her open office door as he walked past it to get to Levi's. He figured since it was probably more than his life's worth to give Levi a hug right now, a warm 'hug in a cup'-effect thermos of tea would have to do.  
Knocking to announce himself, he was smiling quietly as he walked up and set the thermos on Levi's desk.  
"Some tea." he said by way of explanation. "Thanks for today... it could have ended a lot differently, but I'm glad it didn't." Then he turned, intending to leave again so that Levi could get on with whatever he was doing.  
"Thanks... For the drink... You didn't have to."  
"That's okay." Eren replied, pausing and turning back to Levi for a moment. "Hope you like it."  
"I'm sure I will... are you heading home?"  
"I don't have anything else to do. Unless you need me for something, then yeah, I'm going home."  
"No, not that I can think of..."  
"Alright then. I guess I'll see you later." Eren replied, shrugging and then rolling his shoulders a little to wake up the muscles in his wings as he turned to go.   
"Fly home safe..."

  
Armin was still working when Eren let himself into the apartment, only across the hall from his, with the spare key. He shuffled his shoes off and set his messenger bag down by the door, sighing heavily as he rolled his shoulders to ease the tension in his wings. The blue-black feathers caught his view in the corner of his eye as they shimmered in the lights, and he heard a clatter of plastic on wood shortly followed by quiet footsteps suggesting that Armin had taken his headset off and was coming out of his bedroom.  
  
True to form he appeared seconds later with a welcoming smile, the way he was dressed in grey jogging bottoms and an oversized, pale green shirt Eren recognised as one of the many he’d ended up leaving here since Armin had moved in opposite him all he needed to see in order to guess that he’d been working from home today. As Levi and Eren’s elected handler at HQ, and given that they currently weren’t hunting, he didn’t need to cover any night shifts because there was no one to keep watch over.  
“Hey. Bad day?”  
  
Eren paused, suddenly not knowing whether to agree with the assessment or not. He hadn’t really known how to feel about today since Levi hadn’t been anything more than surprised at him losing it badly. That he’d just accepted it like it was nothing out of the ordinary, hadn’t told him to reign it in or got angry with him like people usually did. This had been different from their fights before, he was listening, he wasn’t trying to goad him into leaving. He wasn’t bringing up Erwin to hurt him, because he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see Levi frown like that anymore and it was such a rapid change that he was unsettled by it now that he was far enough away from Levi to get some perspective on it.  
  
“Yeah? I think? I don’t know.” he replied truthfully, tugging his hands through his hair as he bit his lip, weight shifting nervously. He could never hide anything from Armin and he wasn’t about to start trying now even if he was aware that it might be a little on the awkward side talking about Levi to him, all things considered. “Today has just been.. well.. confusing, I guess. He didn’t get mad at me, and I was sure he would.”  
  
Sighing, Armin grabbed him by the wrist and turned, pulling him into the bedroom. Eren followed, looking every inch a lost sheep as he allowed himself to be pushed onto the bed, allowed Armin to carefully wrap the thick duvet across his shoulders before the blond retreated to his desk chair, perching himself on the edge of it.  
“Talk, Eren.” Armin’s wings were a soft shade of steel grey, feathers curving around his shoulders as he crossed one leg over the other and tilted his head to stare at the nephilim on the bed over the top of his square reading glasses.   
“Do I have to?”  
“No.” the blond smiled, watching as Eren receded further within the coverlet and closed his eyes, warm and tired as he rolled onto his side. Sighing, entirely tempted by the small frown on Eren’s face, Armin set his glasses down by his keyboard and wiggled in beside him, taking refuge between the wing tucked around his shoulder under the coverlet and his chest and knowing it would be all too easy just to fall asleep like this when he had reports still to do and he still needed to get what was really bugging Eren out of him. “Not yet.”  
“Good.”  
  
The buzz of his phone woke him up, but thankfully it didn’t wake Armin, the blond’s body tucked against his side with his grey wings half-furled around his body, the spots where the feather caught the moonlight leaving them with a silver sheen. He’d twitched, frowned, and then his wings had closed a little further against him in reaction to the noise. Yawning widely and pushing his hands through his hair, Eren blinked at his screen and groaned.  
“What the fuck, Jean? It’s 2AM.” he groused.  
“You mean you aren’t still up?” Jean sounded genuinely surprised and if it weren’t for the fact Eren had to begrudgingly admit that he was right to be shocked, he’d have travelled the three flights of stairs up to Jean’s own apartment to punch him in the teeth.  
“No. Managed to convince Armin to stop coding early for once, he looks like Hanji’s running him ragged.”  
“Ah. I guess he’s looking after some other hunting pair too while you and Levi aren’t going out.” Jean muttered, his voice unusually distant to say he seemed to have called him at 2AM for a definite purpose.  
“Yeah.” Eren replied, getting up and walking over to the window. The pale blue curtains opened to reveal the by now painfully familiar New York skyline from the skyscraper window, still glowing in the 2AM darkness. The city that ‘never slept’ did indeed live up to the stereotype in some respects more than others. “If you have a point, you’d better get to it, or I’m going back to sleep.”  
  
Apparently the nudge worked, the sound of Jean clearing his throat audible down the slightly crackly phone line. He’d noticed that a lot – things like phones tended to not exactly get along with their changed biology, throwing out static sounds over calls and having decreased range as far as signal strength went. He didn’t know the specifics but he wasn’t exactly prepared to ask Hanji when he likely wouldn’t understand half her answer anyway.  
“Look.. I think we should stop whatever it was we were doing. You should make a go of things with Levi.” Eren swallowed, his throat suddenly tight. This was _not_ what he needed after having that panic attack today. It wasn’t like he particularly cared one way or the other about the nights he spent with Jean - given that they were generally the product of desperation, a previously nonexistent empathy that came with being the only two from their reality, and entirely too much to drink, but after everything else that had happened today it felt like the idea it would never happen again was a rug out from under his feet. “It’s not like I’m not still going to be there to listen to your bitching, Eren, it’s just.. I don’t think our coping mechanism is working.”  
  
As much as Eren hated to admit it, he was right. Their ‘coping mechanism’, if that was what Jean wanted to call it, had done very little to keep them both stable in reality, and it certainly wasn’t helping him avoid the strange sexual tension around Levi, that much was obvious. He could easily think of another reason why, though.  
“I get it. How’s Marco?”  
Predictably, Jean went quiet, sighing into the phone in either frustration or tiredness. He’d guessed right then.  
“He’s… well, I don’t know, Eren.” Eren frowned in turn at the reply. It just wasn’t like Jean to admit that he actually didn’t know something. Generally he pretended he had everything locked down all the time, always had to have some definite, easy plan to follow. “He’s from a similar kind of life to us, but something’s wrong and he won’t tell me. I _know_ him, he’s faking a smile right now, he just won’t tell me why.”  
“How’d you figure?”  
“Eren, I was dating him, remember?” Jean snapped. “Well.. not him. But you get my point. People’s odd habits don’t change that easily.”  
“Alright, I’ll give you that.” Eren’s mind went almost instantly to Armin – he’d been thoroughly invested in computers in his past life, too, although he used them for drastically different things. He liked fruit or mint tea instead of coffee most of the time, just like he’d used to, and he still had a thing for blueberries in his cereal. “It could just be that he went through some bad shit to get here.”  
“If it was, then I think I had something to do with it.” Jean’s voice was unusually strained, now, like his voice was tight and he was having to force himself to keep talking. “He’s fine with anyone else.. but not me. And he recognised me when he got here.”  
“Good recognised you, or tried to beat you up recognised you?” Eren smiled at the memory of him trying to wobble across the room, coping with the misbalancing effect of his new wings, to beat Jean upside the head for a snide comment the first time they met again. Somehow he doubted Marco had done that.  
“I don’t know, he just… kind of stopped. Went white, and then plastered this goddamn _stupid_ fake smile on that hasn’t fucking left since.”  
“He’ll get around it. Takes time, Jean.” Eren replied, yawning. “I get it, it’s hard to give him space when you want to be around him all the time.”  
“Like you and a certain short, grumpy someone, you mean?” Somehow Jean’s attempt at a joke didn’t quite cover his anxiety.  
“No, I mean.. it took me months to go a full week without having to drink to make sure I could actually sleep off the nightmares.” Eren replied. Jean knew this better than most, having usually been the person trying to sleep next to him when he woke up screaming,  the memories of a torn throat and bloody handprints acid in his veins. “He’s got to work it all out in his head yet, its been.. what.. a day? Two, if you count him arriving?”  
“Yeah.. you’re right. I’m being an idiot.” Jean sighed, some shuffling coming from the background of the call which Eren took to mean he was getting ready to end the call. “I can’t expect him to open up after one day.”  
“Well, now that grand mystery of life is solved, can I go the fuck back to sleep?”  
“Yeah.. Yeah I guess so. Sorry, Eren. I forgot you need all the beauty sleep you can get.”  
“Fuck you, Jean.” Eren replied, voice fake-cheery. “Worry about the freckled wonder later and _go to bed.”_  
“Night, Jaeger.”

  
He was surprised that it had actually been _Hanji’s_ idea, and not anyone else (because it seemed that it should’ve been someone else’s) but Eren wasn’t going to complain because it was the end of the week and they hadn’t been out drinking in a while. He’d been  _drunk_ , certainly, but that was more because he stayed in. He didn’t know how the night was going to end if Levi was there though, and Armin had already said that Hanji was planning on making him go even if she had to turn up at his apartment and drag him bodily in order to get him out. He didn’t know whether he trusted himself around Levi drunk after how stupid he’d been sober.  
  
“I guess it’s a good thing he’s coming, really. It’ll get his mind off Erwin.” Eren said, the room empty but for his reflection in the mirrored front of Armin’s wardrobe. They were going clubbing after but Hanji had already said that the two older members of their group would in all likelihood return home at that point. Which was a shame, because he could guess that Levi would probably be quite a good dancer, if he let himself. Assuming that his sense of rhythm was any good.  
  
He bit his lip, trying and hopelessly failing to turn his thoughts forcefully away from the annoyingly enticing mental image of his hands settling around slim hips amid the close press of other nameless bodies on a smoky strobe-lit dance floor. Of pulling him closer till they may as well just be skin-on-skin, rocking fluidly together, his quickened breaths lost amid the loud music as it thrummed through him. Of turning him around until they were pressed together completely, one hand tilting his face up, those grey eyes burning with something other than annoyance or indifference for a change as he leant down to steal his attention away from the dance floor with a kiss that flat-lined any hope of rational thought and--  
“What’s that about Erwin?”  
  
_Fuck._  What had he just been thinking about?! Eren stalled, glancing guilty at his reflection as he pushed any thought of Levi to the back of his mind and turned to meet the blond, their designated sober and sensible person for the night, smiling hesitantly. It felt like he shouldn’t really be discussing this, even with Armin, because he knew Levi was a bit of a private person, but it wasn’t like he was going to tell anyone.  
“They had a bit of a thing, him and Levi. But it’s over now, and he’s still down about it.” he admitted. He didn’t have the exact details but it sounded to him like they had just been doing exactly what he and Jean did – sleeping around, only Levi had got a lot more emotionally invested than Erwin had, and when the Commander took a step back, it had hurt him more than he was willing to let on.  
  
“Just Levi, now, is it?” Armin teased, his blond hair dyed with thick stripes of icy blue that he knew from experience were going to be glowing later under the UV lights of whatever dance club they chose for the night. “Not Lance Corporal anymore?”  
“We’ve been getting on a bit better over the last few days, yeah. So what?” Eren replied, shuffling his feet as he turned back to his reflection. They were both clearly dressed for a night of serious clubbing rather than the more laid back bar setting they were headed to first, Armin in ripped, dark skinny jeans and a white long sleeved shirt under a blue waistcoat decorated with spikes and chains, his wrists and neck decorated with more of the same, his face decorated with blue UV paint in a delicate network of dots around his eyes. Eren had gone one step further, though, having used replacing the clothes he’d lost from leaving college behind as an excuse to buy a new (probably sluttier by his old standards) wardrobe for going out in.   
  
He was planning to head out in a leather jacket but his top half was only covered by a dark green fishnet shirt and he’d managed to dig out his favourite leathery hot pants to go with the jacket, thick chains clinking from his belt loops on either of his hips as he moved. A green heart had been put over where his own should be in UV paint, trails of green leading down from it faking a bleeding wound.  
  
He shot Armin a smirk as he watched the blond’s train of thought come to a crashing halt once his friend looked him up and down, watched him fold his arms and try his hardest to wear a disapproving expression only to fail dramatically.  
“Eren, are you wearing Mikasa’s clothes again?” The two of them both knew that she’d taken quite a liking to the more gothic end of fashion, much like Armin usually did, so it was no surprised that her wardrobe contained a whole lot of fishnet.  
“No, not this time. These are all mine.” he replied, shrugging. “Is that  _eyeliner?”_  
“Why, want me to do yours?” Armin quipped, fixing him with a smirk of his own. “I’m not judging you for the leathers, even if you’re going to freeze your ass off.”  
“I thought you liked my ass.”  
Armin just rolled his eyes, shooing him out in the direction of the door because if they left it much longer they were going to be late, hoping the action would distract him from the fierce blush colouring his cheeks as he averted his eyes from Eren’s legs.  
“Shut up, Eren.”

* * *

  
When they got to the bar it wasn’t that hard to find Hanji, Levi looking entirely not amused where he was sat between her and Jean, Marco across the table from him. They were a reasonable distance between the very occupied bar and the barely occupied dance floor, the speakers enough of a distance away that they could hear each other talking without having to shout. 

It was clear that Jean and Marco were just as dressed up to go out as they were and equally decorated in UV paints, the two-toned blond’s belt home to a few thin glow sticks that hadn’t been snapped yet and so were inactive and grey, still. The table was already home to a fishbowl and something dangerously fruit-coloured that drew Eren’s attention like a magnet, and it looked like Hanji had got a pitcher for herself and Levi, so it appeared they were set to pre-drink a little more than they already had at their separate apartments.  
“Didn’t start without me then.” he greeted, eyeing the drinks with a smirk. “Nice of you, Jean.”  
“Missing out on drinks, oh how my heart bleeds for you, Jaeger.” the teen replied, his tone equally sarcastic, looking entirely sure that Eren had already drank enough to be pleasantly buzzed given that he must have already had enough to be warmed through since he was wearing those shorts and wasn’t coming in complaining how cold it was outside.  
“Very funny. I’m sure I’ll catch up.” he shrugged, quite happy that Jean moved, heading in the direction of the bar and dragging Marco with him, as he wiggled into the booth next to Levi and twirled his fingers around one of the straws stuck in the fishbowl.  
“Didn’t think Hanji would actually get you to come out, but I’m glad she did.” he greeted, smiling.  
  
Levi turned to glance over at the bar, half looking like his thoughts were somewhere else, not that he could blame him. Honestly, Eren was surprised he was even here. Happy, but surprised.  
“I was half tempted to fly away to somewhere she wouldn’t find me.” He had to lean forward slightly to catch what Levi said, as he was evidently keeping his volume down so that Hanji didn’t hear him. Somehow he didn’t think there was anywhere you could hide from Hanji if she really wanted to find you, and that was a sobering thought. “But no doubt someone would have found me.” Levi looked him up and down, and suddenly Eren felt a little exposed for the first time since putting the somewhat revealing clothes on, a blush that he was grateful would be hidden by the low lighting surfacing to his cheeks as he tried not to fidget under Levi’s gaze. “Aren’t you freezing your ass off?”  
  
To give himself something to do, Eren busied himself with purloining Jean’s fishbowl for himself as Levi spoke, watching his absentee drinking buddy’s progress over to the somewhat packed bar. It seemed like he and Marco were getting on well enough, despite the worried phone call, although a little liquid courage on either part probably wouldn’t go amiss.  
  
“It’s cold, sure.” he replied, shrugging his shoulders as his fingers continued to mess with his own straw. Maybe he should have brought a jacket, maybe not – although there wasn’t much point when it would have stayed in a cloak room the majority of the night, it wasn’t like he was going to risk flying drunk. Well, not again, at least. He’d had to try it at least once. “But the club we’re headed to later will be warm enough. Either that or the alcohol will take care of it.”  
  
"Well, you obviously know from experience if you do this kind of thing regularly."  
“Used to.” Eren corrected, chuckling a little. He couldn’t exactly disagree. “Most hunts are night-jobs so I don’t have so much time or inclination anymore.”  
"Sure you'll find something else to hold your interest instead of clubbing."  
"Maybe I already have." Eren's gaze wasn't on Levi anymore, the teen busying himself with trying to see where Jean had gone because if he knew he looked at Levi he'd blush or something ridiculous like that. "To be honest I just want to tire myself out and forget how much I sucked at life this week."  
  
"I'm sure Kirschtein will help in that request." Levi replied, evidently also thinking about other things given that he was looking into the middle distance and filling the quiet space around his words with another sip of his drink.  
Eren glanced at Marco, who appeared to have tensed at the words but remained silent, eyeing Levi a little nervously. "Nah. I'm Armin's responsibility tonight. Poor guy."  
Levi smirked slightly at that, glass being carefully placed on to the table by the tips of his fingers. “It’d probably get the same result, kid.”  
_“Behave.”_ Hanji interjected, slapping his shoulder and giving him a stern look.  
 “This is me behaving.” Levi shot back, almost affectionate sarcasm clear in his tone. They exchanged pointed looks before she rolled her eyes and turned to him.  
“Excuse him, he’s a bitter old fool.” Levi’s expression bordered on exasperation as he retreated to his drink again.  
  
"He's sweet enough for me." The words left Eren's mouth before his brain had time to filter them, and he felt new heat prickle across his cheeks, putting his stupidity down to the alcohol starting to hit him. "Besides, Armin's my best friend but we're not like that."  
“Whatever you say, kid. The blush says otherwise.”  
  
Eren frowned, wondering when Jean would save him from the moment of temporary brain death that was occurring by returning with more alcohol any time soon. Hopefully tequila would drive Levi’s smirk from his mind, even if he didn’t think anything could get rid of the lingering thoughts about what it might feel like to kiss him again and have it actually mean something.  
“Don’t you have anything more entertaining than tormenting me these days?” he replied, trying to pretend he wasn’t pouting.  
“Not here, I don’t. I’m stuck here till the vision impaired scientist deems I can leave.”  
“And what are you going to do if she doesn’t?” Eren replied, smirking at the idea of Levi at a rave. He’d probably pitch a fit at all the people getting up close and personal on one tight dance floor. “Going to come rave with us? You’ll have to get painted up if you do.”  
"No thanks." Eren willed himself not to get any more flustered as he watched Levi give him a slow once-over, taking in the UV paint he was wearing. "The paint itself looks uncomfortable, not to mention what little clothes you _do_ have on."  
“Aww, that’s no fun.” Eren replied, distracting himself from Levi’s eyes on him by returning the favour, trying to redirect his thoughts to what he’d actually paint on Levi if the older nephilim decided to let him. “I bet you’d look good in red.”  
Or white, while he thought about it, given that the colour would blend perfectly with the wings tattooed on his shoulders.  
  
"I look fantastic in red, thank you. Just not paint. Shit's unclean and looks itchy." Eren bit his lip at that. Given that most of their hunting gear was either red or black he already knew _exactly_ how fantastic Levi looked in it, in vivid detail, thank you very much.  
“It’s not that bad once it’s dried and fixed.” Now he was definitely pouting a little, his inner artist itching at the thought of being able to see what Levi would look like with his features emphasised by coloured paints. He should have expected the response he got, though, and he wasn’t too let down because he could always draw it. “But fair enough.”  
  
Levi was starting to look a lot more contemplative, frowning slightly as though he was trying to seriously think despite the party atmosphere and the fact they were out at a bar. When Jean came back over with more drinks, Eren accepted the cherry brandy he’d got for him and set it down in front of Levi instead, his grin wider than before, if physically possible.  
“Hey. Less brooding, more drinking.”  
"I have a drink, Jaeger." Levi looked at him blankly, glancing down at the brandy seemingly unimpressed, but sufficiently distracted from whatever had made him so sombre a moment ago.  
"Well, now you have one extra."Eren replied, wondering just how many drinks it would take to get someone as old and experienced as Levi well and truly trollied. Probably more than he could ever take, that was for sure. _  
_ "I don't need an extra drink..." _  
“_ I'll down mine if you do, though. That's an equal amount of suffering, right?"  
“Seriously?”  
  
Ignoring Levi’s sarcasm, Eren nodded, watching  as Levi pulled the glass closer to him and then picked it up with his fingers around the rim, the same odd way he always held drinks. It didn’t take much more thought to count them both down and then knock his own back, sighing contentedly at the burning sensation in his throat and then laughing at the slightly surprised look on Levi’s face as he held onto the two left over cherries that had came with the alcohol.  
  
"The hell was that?" Hanji asked, shooting the pair of them with a shocked look.  
"What did it look like?"  
"It looked like you were having  _fun_." Eren tried not to snicker, he really did, but somehow he found himself coming up a little short in his attempt to hold back his amusement at Hanji looking at him like he was a miracle worker for actually getting Levi to drink something without it being a long, drawn out process.  
"What can I say? You said you liked single Levi."  
"I do... But wasn't expecting it so soon." Eren was stilled by the smirk on his CO’s face as he toyed with the cherries, trying to ignore the way his throat went slightly dry as he watched Levi pull one off its stem with his teeth. "Can you still knot those?"  
  
Whatever Eren had been meaning to say when he set his glass down on the table was swallowed by the head on collision of his thoughts as he watched Levi with the cherries. For the second time tonight he was wondering why the fuck his first thought was that he'd rather Levi have been using that tongue a little closer to him rather than the cherry stem for the second time tonight. Plus he was stealing his party trick, which really wasn't fair.  
  
Never mind Hanji,  _he_  was starting to like the idea of Levi being single. And that wasn't good. Levi was his CO before everything else and he was running off the assumption that it was still totally unprofessional for them to do anything even if they were both interested.  
  
Still, he'd just downed an entire tall glass of whiskey and lemonade, the other drink Jean had brought over for him, so he was too buzzed right now to give it much thought, leaning over and tugging the remaining cherry stem out from between Levi's fingers with his teeth, the alcohol bringing warmth to his face and a certain fire in his green eyes that wasn't there before as he tugged the stem into his mouth and copied the Lance Corporal's previous movement, tying his own before dropping it into his empty glass and sitting back with an entirely self-satisfied look as Armin sent him a despairing glance and Jean could vaguely be heard laughing over the thudding music in the background of their conversations.  
"I can do that party trick too." he announced, grinning. He'd certainly had enough practice at it given that he had a serious weakness for cherry-flavoured anything.  
  
“Fuck, Jaeger, keep your mouth to yourself.” Eren’s expression remained unapologetic as he watched Levi wipe his fingers on his sleeve, quite used to the man’s habit of not being keen on being that close to anyone by now. “You could have just asked me to give it to you.”  
He could have, yes, but that would have been no fun – or so his current state of drunkenness was leading him to think.  
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to get you too.”  
  
Apparently noticing that Levi was frowning again, Jean rolled his eyes and leant across the table to grab Eren by the wrist, tugging him up in the direction of the bar. There was no point sticking around if he only had half a fishbowl of tequila left and wasn't anywhere near as drunk as he could be yet.  
"Come on, Eren. Shots."  
"Thought you'd never ask." Eren replied, smirking, very easily distracted from the sudden moment of awkwardness he'd caused because he had more or less stopped thinking too much at this point.  
"I don't  _have_  to ask, you cherry whore."  
The brunet glared but wiggled out to join him anyway, muttering what was no doubt an offensive nickname under his breath as he waved at Armin to join them but was politely declined, having already forgot that Armin was trying to be the person who stayed sober, or more likely just trying to get him to drink regardless.  
"Shots?" Hanji's attention was caught as she watched the two of them head over to the bar, grinning widely. She had only really heard about how much Eren and Jean drank, not really doing this except when it seemed like Levi really needed dragging out or she'd had one hell of a rough day herself.  
"Yeah." Armin sighed, shaking his head. "They're probably going to race them, the idiots. If either of them can walk home by the time we're done I'll be surprised."  
“Isn’t that what they are going for?” The question made Armin pause, taking his eyes off Eren for a moment to raise a questioning brow at Levi until he continued."Getting blind drunk. Seemed like Jaeger was used to such things."  
  
He was, and that was the problem. Eren and Jean were possibly the worst influences on each other that he'd ever come across - as evidenced by the fact they were now ploughing through shots as fast as either of them could. He gave it ten minutes before one of them was doing something monumentally stupid, and at this rate Jean was going to scar Marco before they even knew each other that well. In the time period Armin came from you didn't technically have to drink alcohol to get the same effect anymore, they'd synthesized single-use drugs that could get you pleasantly buzzed for a few hours without having to black out or risk liver failure, but that was just one of the downsides to being moved backward in time rather than forward to keep pace with the HQ being operated out of.  
"They're not usually this bad, really." he informed Marco, lying through his teeth. The guy had only been around for a matter of days and he really didn't want him to think they were always like this. They could both have serious moments, too. Then again, Marco would probably get to see that as Jean mentored him through his basic training.  
  
Not ten minutes and a few song changes later he looked over to find that a rather drunk but thoroughly pleased looking Eren Jaeger had clambered up onto the bar top and was preoccupied with giving half the bar a floor show as he rolled his hips back against the steel pole connected from the corner of the bar to the ceiling, one hand hooked around it while the other teasingly pulled the hem of his shirt up while Jean whooped and waved what looked suspiciously like twenty five dollars at him.  
  
The blond nearly choked on his lemonade, slamming his glass down.  
"Oh my  _fucking_  god. He is not doing this to me  _again_." Armin hissed, pulling himself out of the booth to head over to the bar, easily still audible as he made his way over. "Eren Jaeger get your wasted ass down from there this minute or I am calling your sister!"  
  
It all got a bit hazy as to what happened after Armin managed to get him down off the bar and Marco surprised them all by being able to handle more shots than Eren and Jean put together, but somehow they managed to make it to the UV party they'd initially planned for and then some, not starting the return journey until at least three in the morning.  
  
The rave had been everything they’d been expecting, and he wasn’t exactly complaining at getting to dance with the others till it felt like most of him was sore, but his mind was still full of Levi. He couldn’t stop thinking about the man and it had been throwing him off all night. Now he was tired, and somewhere along the way he'd ditched the rest of them. Oddly, Hanji had let them paint her up and had lasted the whole night with them after abruptly Levi left (although nowhere near as drunk and in all likelihood staying to make sure a very frayed Armin retained his sanity) and somewhere along the way of them walking between the exit to the nightclub and their taxi spot, given that three out of five of them were too drunk to fly, she'd pointed out the building Levi had gone home to.  
  
Somehow he was tired and emotionally confused and still very drunk, and all he wanted to know was why Levi had left when he was (as far as he was concerned) still halfway through convincing him to come to the 'paint party' with them when Jean dragged him off for shots. It wasn't until he head-butted Levi's front door that his fogged brain caught up with the fact he'd arrived at his destination, a small smile on his face nonetheless as he reverberated a few steps backward off the door, absentmindedly rubbing his forehead.  
"Well that hurt. Who.. who was mean enough to put that there?" he muttered to himself, sighing and letting out a quiet groan. His head was swimming after the impact it had made on the door, and he could really do with a glass of water… or another round of shots in an effort to postpone his come-down until later.  
  
Levi looked like he'd been asleep before he opened the door, but truth be told Eren was too busy trying not to be distracted by the fact that he was shirtless (and trying to avoid pointing that out) to care too much as he leant back from where he'd flopped to the floor, grinning lazily at him like it wasn't fuck only knew what time in the morning.  
"Hiiii.."  
"Eren it's half three." Came the completely unimpressed reply. Well that answered that question. Were he less drunk he might worry that there was pain incoming for waking Levi up, but with he didn't remember how many drinks inside him he couldn't bring himself to be all that bothered about it.  
"Is it? Well, we got Hanji to come with us, so you're coming too next time." And he meant that. He didn't care how long he had to keep trying for it, one day he was going to get Levi clubbing with them because tonight had been exactly what he needed to keep his 'fake it till you make it' positivity going. "I kinda got sepe.. split up? Split off? One of them.."  
"You got separated and came here?"  
Yes, that was entirely what he meant. Very helpful.  
"Yeah. That."  
"Why didn't you just go home?"   
"You're closer.. so Hanji said, anyway. And I wanted to see you. My bad?"  
He didn't regret it in the slightest even though the question suggested it. It had taken quite a bit of co-ordination to get to the roof of the building without landing on his face rather than his feet because his balance was bad as it was, so it wasn't like he was going to go anywhere without having seen him, even if he'd ended up just sleeping in front of Levi's door, which at this point was a very real possibility.  
"No, it's not, it's fine. Get your tight ass off the floor."   
"Mmkay. S'probably a good idea, it's not very comfy." he muttered sleepily, grabbing the doorframe to haul himself to his feet again, very nearly tipping forward and falling straight back on his ass because the world was spinning, but managing to stop himself by using his wings to act as a counterbalance. They came in handy more often than he thought.  
  
"No, I don't imagine it is. Come on, get in. It's cold out here."  
And then there was a hand on his shoulder guiding him in the general direction of the sofa. He was too tired to really take in anything about the apartment, and the place was in darkness anyway because Levi had been sleeping, so he allowed himself to find a final resting place on the sofa cushions, hoping that he wasn't going to wake up with a hangover but knowing it was probably inevitable given how much he'd drank because although nephilim were more resistant to alcohol that just meant Eren had to drink more than he would have done before to counter it.  
  
"You're nicer than you pretend you are, you know." he muttered sleepily, smiling.  
"Yeah yeah, I'm a saint. Down." Levi replied, sounding entirely unconvinced as Eren allowed his weight to shift sideways and his head found a comfy pillow on the sofa cushion. There was no need to worry about getting body paint anywhere because Armin had made sure they'd all washed it off before they left the club, knowing that when they got back to their respective homes everyone was probably going to be too tired and that as designated sober person it was probably his job to save their furniture and/or bedding from the very real threat of UV paint.  
"You're a cute grumpy saint."  
  
Unfortunately, drinking made him honest.  
"And you're a idiotic, drunken child." he sat up again as he was presented with water and an aspirin, not able to find himself displeased at being called a child anymore because he was just too tired to care. His body ached from all the dancing and his head was starting to pound from what he presumed was dehydration so the glass of water was a godsend."Drink that."   
  
"Well I'm your idiotic drunken child now. Or something..." he mumbled, waiting until Levi got back from wherever he vanished off to in the dark before he replied. That hadn't come out right, somewhere in the back of his mind, it wasn't what he'd wanted to say, but what the hell. It was done now. "Poor you."  
"Yeah yeah, poor me, come on, shoes off." Levi prompted, clearly trying to chivvy him along in the hopes of getting some sleep but sitting down next to him for a few moments all the same.  
  
"'Kay. Sorry if I scarred you earlier." he replied, sinking back onto the sofa now that he'd necked the tablet and the water, feeling a little better for it. "Didn't mean to cross any boundaries." And he hadn't. At the time he hadn't been thinking about how close stealing cherry stem from Levi's hand would put them, he'd been more preoccupied with actually tying it, but now he could appreciate why he got snapped at a little more. He just hadn't noticed it at the time.  
  
"It's alright. Don't worry about that. You.. didn't cross anything."  
"Good. I was worried.. because you were frowning. And that's not good."  
"You don't need to worry about me kid, I always frown." and that was the point, he didn't want to see him frown anymore. He wanted to see him smile that small smile of genuine happiness again, wanted to hear him laugh more. "Worry about yourself and getting your shoes off."  
"I tried to hate you but I can't, so now I'm worrying." he replied, tugging at his shoes. It was a slow process to deal with the knots since he'd worn his lace up hunting boots and his fingers were going a little numb, but he was getting there. "That's just me, I'm afraid."   
  
And it was true. He'd tried his best to hate Levi for what he saw as trying to change him just because he felt like it, but he couldn't hate someone for being a person. His presumptions were his own fault so he had no one to blame but himself when they were proved untrue, and he couldn't hate Levi for that. Especially not when he knew (because he was doing the same thing himself) that the older nephilim wasn't quite as happy with his life as he pretended he was. "S'done.."   
"Good, come on, lie down properly." then the body heat next to him was gone again and Eren frowned as Levi stood, trying to persuade him to curl up back where he'd been so that he could put the blanket that had somehow appeared when Eren wasn't looking over him.  
"Okay.. sorry, I just kinda turned up, didn't I?" he replied, snuggling up a little more as it occurred to him that this was a total home invasion and he should have gone to his own apartment with Armin rather than run off here, whether he'd wanted to see Levi or not.  
"I'd rather you show up here than somewhere anyone could find you, kid, least people will know you're safe here."  
  
"At least you're not lonely now." He had no idea where the words had come from, but he meant them now they had. Levi had seemed lonely when he came in with Hanji, the same kind of lonely that struck him about Jean. The kind where you could talk to people all night and still not feel any better about anything when you walked away. The kind that absolutely sucked, that he was trying his best to get rid of by taking the opportunity Hanji's suggestion had given them all with both hands.  
"You're a rather emotional drunk, Jaeger."  
"I'm a rather emotional everything." Just incase Levi hadn't noticed that about him already, which really he doubted. "'Sides, I'm not drunk, you're sober." Far too sober for Eren's liking. Although he didn't think Levi probably changed much when he got drunk.  
"Yes ok, state the obvious, kid."  
It was a bizarre request, to Eren's drunken mind, but what the hell. He actually was that far gone that if someone had walked up to him and asked him to call an ambulance he would have been slow enough to literally call them an ambulance and shuffle off on his way.  
"Not sure why, but 'kay. The obvious?"  
"Get some sleep, I'll fill this up for you." The quiet chuckle his stupidity received made him blush when he realised that he must had said something wrong, but he was a bit too far gone to worry about it too much. He was much more preoccupied with the fact that Levi had taken his empty glass and was trying to move away from him, throwing his arms around his shoulders and clinging like the small child Levi so often told him he was in an attempt to get him to stay.  
"I'm not tired, though. Just slightly tipsy."   
"Slightly tipsy? You head-butted my front door, Eren."  
"Yeah, I did," he giggled at that, shuffling a little closer to the warmth provided by Levi's body. "that kinda hurt."  
"Meaning you're pissed off your face. Let go, I'll be here in the morning."  
"Do I have to? You're warm.." His best attempt at puppy-dog eyes was effectively foiled given that Levi wasn't looking at him and he let go of Levi's shoulders without much more prompting, allowing him to extract himself to a safe distance where he was no longer at risk of being cuddled if he stayed still for too long.  
"Yes you do. I wanna sleep, Eren. Like you should be doing right now."  
"Okay. Go sleep then. Night, Levi."   
"Night kid, sweet dreams."  
  
And then, after placing a full glass of water back on the coffee table, Levi was gone, leaving Eren to shuffle himself around on the sofa under the blanket until he was sufficiently comfortable for sleep to steal the rest of the night from him.

* * *

  
It wasn't until about midday that he clawed his way back to consciousness, his throat doing its best at replicating the texture of sandpaper which made him groan, squeezing his eyes shut against what low level of light was in the room as he blindly groped in the direction of the glass of water, which he knew would probably help him more than the aspirin. He took that too, anyway. No point wasting it if it was on offer.  
  
His head was still spinning and he knew he had no hope of getting to his feet and staying upright, so he simply sank back down onto the sofa and buried his face in the sofa cushions, content to wait until whoever owned it showed up, because he had no idea where he'd ended up after last night, not recognising what little of the room around it he could see and his memory a mess, appeared to turf him out and tell him to go home.  
  
"Sleeping beauty is finally awake, then?"  
The words woke him up properly, and he rolled over and sat up, swallowing another wide yawn. Levi's voice made it painfully obvious whose apartment it was that he'd ended up passing out in. He straightened up considerably quickly, tugging his shoes back on because he was pretty sure that even though he could smell breakfast that he needed to leave, and relatively quickly.  
  
"Sorry, I shouldn't be here.. Don't remember what happened last night." he muttered, folding the blanket and dropping it in the same space he'd previously occupied. He'd expected to wake up at Armin's but somehow he hadn't, and he had a sizeable black hole where his memories of the previous night should have been. "Shit.. How much did I even drink?" The question was barely louder than a mumble as he dragged his hands through his hair, distracted by how glad he was that he hadn't woken up in Levi's bed, because then this would be a whole fucking lot more awkward than it already was.  
  
Even if it was only Levi’s sofa he’d woken up on, the hazy hole where a good chunk of his memory of the previous night should be suggested that Levi probably thought he was an idiot. Or worse, was pitying him – having brought him the drink and letting him curl up and die in his living room. He hadn’t spent the majority of his time with Levi insisting on his maturity just to be pitied for drinking too hard.  
  
"You don't need to leave in a rush, Jaeger."  
It wasn't until Levi effectively put himself between Eren and the door that he clicked on to the fact that he might not actually want him gone as soon as he woke up, something Eren was expecting. Then again, knowing what he knew about Levi now he probably wasn't even remotely used to the normal procedure for waking up mid afternoon on someone's sofa after a night out when you weren't even supposed to be there - or heck, even if you  _were_.  
  
The only thing that was saving him from running off and throwing up was the glasses of water he'd had before he slept and while briefly waking up, and he was intensely grateful to Levi for making him drink it now even if it had seemed like a slightly annoying requirement at the time. Or at least, he presumed it would have felt like it. Because he was still drawing a total blank from about halfway through the UV partying to now. He didn't remember Levi letting him in or any of what he might have said, and that was probably a good thing because he got surprisingly honest with people with liberal application of alcohol.  
  
"Sorry.. I presumed you wouldn't want me here. Knowing me I didn't exactly give you chance to leave me to rot." he replied sheepishly. "Although I wouldn't blame you if you did because I seem to remember something about dancing on a bar about the time you left."  
  
"You gave me time. Hell if I hadn't opened the door you'd probably have found yourself asleep against it when you woke up." Levi replied, glancing off in the direction of his kitchen. He appeared to have been in the middle of cleaning and Eren wondered whether it was because he was there, or just to give himself something to do until he woke up. "Though I think you almost gave Arlert a heart attack."  
"Oh? Heh.. you'd think he'd be used to that by now. Hanji came with us to the paint party and helped him not die of a coronary after you left." Eren replied, vaguely aware that his head was still pounding a little. "Do you mind if I borrow your shower quickly? The water helped but I still feel really rough.."  
"Sure, take as long as you need." Levi replied, gesturing to the bathroom door.  
"Thanks. I know you ran away early, and I can't blame you because it didn't seem to be your thing, but did you at least have fun?"  
"Not my thing no... Glad Hanji had a good time at least. I've not even checked my phone but I'm sure there'll be texts from her sat waiting."  
"Still. I'll get you to a paint party someday. You'd look pretty bad ass all neon... and wow I must be still drunk because I'm not thinking before I say things, clearly."  
"It'll be a feat of you can get paint on my kid, I won't do it willingly."  
"Not even for a photo?" A small, confused frown crinkled Levi’s brow, and had he not been up to his eyes with hangover nausea he’d have found it obscenely cute.  
"Why would there need to be a photo?"  
"Because then you don’t have to wear the paint all night but you still have proof you lived dangerously for an hour or so? And it might look arty on your wall?" Levi folded his arms and smirked, previous confusion banished and replaced with his usual easy confidence again.  
"Who says I don't live dangerously already?"  
"Me."  
"And you know me enough to say it do you?"   
"In terms of living dangerously you're definitely not keeping up with me. Maybe let Hanji get you to do something stupid for money? It might be a laugh."  
Well… it might be a laugh for Hanji, he supposed.  
"That might be your thing Jaeger, but that's definitely not mine. I know her mind, and I'd rather not subjugate myself to it for money..."   
“Aww. Well, sorry Hanji, I tried.” Eren replied, shrugging absently as he moved past him in the direction of the bathroom now that their conversation seemed to be reaching a satisfactory break point. "All I mean is you're too good at your job for hunting to be 'living dangerously' anymore. I'll be right back!"   
  
Eren let out a quiet sigh of satisfaction as he stepped under the powerful spray of hot water, using the shower really more to wake himself up than for anything else. Levi's shower was a lot nicer than his back home, but he supposed that was one of the perks for being his rank given that his whole apartment was nicer.  
  
He was in and out in five minutes, having stolen a bit of shampoo and body scrub but not touched anything else because it looked like Levi had a system going that was worth more than his life to disturb, slightly awkward because he got back out substantially refreshed and then put his clothes from the previous night back on. Not that he really minded going anywhere in shorts and a fishnet shirt, because he may as well flaunt it while he still had it and Mikasa wasn't around to tell him off, but if they went shopping anywhere with a shoes and shirt policy he might raise a few questions. Or past any churches.  
Either that or people might make some interesting assumptions about Levi's status as a sugar daddy, which was an intensely amusing thought but not one he was going to bring up to him.  
  
The chains clinking around his belt gave him away long before his footsteps did as he came out ruffling his hair to get rid of any last stray droplets after towel-drying it, seeing Levi washing up the pots he'd left in the sink the previous night. It looked oddly domestic, as much as he tried to ignore the thought, and it made his heart skip oddly because he was having to try far too hard to push away the thought that he wouldn't mind seeing him being more domestic around his own apartment too.  
  
"I'm done." he announced cheerfully. "And I didn't mess up your system in there. Did you have any plans?" He hoped he didn't come across as too optimistic or too pushy if he wasn't wanted given that he'd already imposed by staying, but he'd be quite happy to spend the rest of the day with Levi even if they weren't working.  
“Better not have done either…” he heard Levi mumble, not able to help the small smile that crossed his face at the words, although they were hard to hear given that he was still preoccupied with his washing up. "Do you mind going out in that or do you want to go home and change first?" _  
_ "I'm good like this. I still have my leather jacket if it gets too cold."  
"Then, how's lunch sound?"  
"Sounds good to me, I think I slept through breakfast."  
"Bacon didn't even wake you, give me a minute okay?"  
Eren blinked at that, barely able to imagine a world where the smell of frying bacon didn’t rouse him from sleep.  
"Wow, must have been dire if bacon didn't work. I'll be here till you're ready."  
  
As it turned out, it didn’t take Levi all that long to get ready to go out, looking a lot more well suited to the trip, his blue fitted jacket catching the brunet’s attention as he paused to scoop up his keys, sliding his phone into his back pocket. The movement reminded Eren to check his own, but aside from a text from Armin to ask if he’d got to Levi’s alright, there wasn’t anything new in his inbox.  
“Ready?”


	8. Clarity - 8.1: Conflict.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Major, major apologies for the very sudden, very long haitus guys. Real life ick + two months of writers block = unhappy, unproductive Myst. The good news is that's looking to be almost over and I have my mojo kind of back. This chapter was so long that I had to split it into two parts, so here's P1. P2 will be along as fast as possible, and hopefully from now on we're back to regularly weekly (ish) posts, bi-weekly at worst.  
> Music for this chapter is 'Fences', by Paramore.  
> As usual, find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. Currently Firrie and I are beta-ing each other's chapters(ish) so please excuse any mistakes. Levi's POV can be found here - http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813

Eren nodded, following Levi out of the apartment and down the street in quiet, personable silence. Aside from the fact that the chains hanging off his belt loops were clinking continuously as he walked, of course. No doubt he looked a bit odd still wearing rave gear in the middle of the day but it wasn’t like he cared for the stares he occasionally got. The only thing that made him think about it was his consideration that perhaps Levi was more bothered by it than him.  
  
If nights out drinking weren’t Levi’s thing, then in the interest of getting to know him he needed to find some kind of activity that _was_ , and didn’t involve them attempting to beat the stuffing out of each other on a regular basis. They needed to get out of the highly-charged atmosphere of the training rooms and into more casual settings. Maybe reading? He had a lot of eBooks he needed to catch up on thanks to Armin beating him with a fully stocked Kindle till he agreed to take it. It wasn’t likely Levi had adopted the new technology, yet, though. From what he’d seen of Levi so far it was that he tended to adopt a low-tech approach to things, probably just wasn’t that comfortable with high levels of unfamiliar technology. After watching Mikasa and Annie get their heads around computers and TVs he was quite used to the idea of some nephilim not being interested in keeping pace with advancing time periods as they arrived in them, sticking to the mannerisms of their own instead.  
  
Maybe ice skating would be a better idea – there were definitely the facilities available, and the high physicality of the sport was enough to stop him fidgeting and not the kind of thing he could really screw up where Levi was concerned. It totally _wasn’t_ an excuse to see what he’d look like on the ice. Not at all.  
  
It was a longer walk than usual, even though the streets were relatively at their emptiest by the city’s normal standards, but eventually Levi lead them to a small coffee shop. The sign above the door read _‘Tea-a Maria’s’_ so he guessed they also did tea. Either that or the owner had a stellar sense of humour and a fondness for spirits. It was cosy inside, with cream stucco on the walls and terracotta tiling, a variety of reading nooks with big wooden bookshelves and rich red booth seating (along with a few tables clustered around a small stage at the other end) being sufficient to fill the space nicely. Quiet Latin music blared through speakers over the counter the baristas were staffing against the back wall and the low hum of conversation washed over them like a tide as a chiming bell over the door announced their arrival.  
“Wow, this looks a lot nicer than a Starbucks.” he muttered quietly, making a mental note to come here more often if the coffee was any good as he stopped by the door to take a longer look around.  
“That’s actually what drew me in.” Levi replied. “Though the specials board outside helped a few days back.”  
  
Levi headed over to the counter, and Eren followed silently. It was quiet but not overly so, the two of them evidently having missed the lunchtime rush by a small margin and being surrounded by the last dregs of it. Still taking the place in he missed the majority of the conversation that Levi had with the barista, only refocusing his attention when Levi asked him what he wanted.  
“Eh, dealer’s choice. I presume you know what’s good if you’re a regular..” he trailed off, more interested in finding out what kind of coffee Levi would think he’d go for than perusing the specials right now. He could do that later because he was definitely going to come back. It was a little trick he’d picked up off Annie when she’d taught him what she knew about behaviour patterns and Armin had only followed it up more upon finding out that he was interested, so by now he was quite good at reading people.  
  
Annie knew more about a lot of topics than she usually let on, being just a generally quiet person. She didn’t need other people to be happy, so it was rare that anyone got past the arms length at which she kept the general population. Her closeness to Mikasa had probably helped, in his case, but it was an attitude to socialisation that he’d have loved to have had. Unfortunately he just wasn’t built an introvert.  
  
“I wouldn’t call three lattes in one afternoon being a regular.” Levi’s voice brought him out of his thoughts about Annie, and he smirked.  
“It’s three lattes more than me, that makes you the experienced one.” Eren replied, winking but only receiving a sigh for his trouble.  
“He’ll have a chocolate mocha and a chicken and bacon panini.”  
“Coming right up, if you wanna pay now, I can bring them over.” the barista replied cheerily.  
  
Levi paid before he had chance to object, and then he turned and walked off to a nook in the far corner with a window on the other side of the table. He busied himself taking off his scarf and jacket while Eren wandered over, still taking everything in.  
"Hope the panini order was alright."  
  
Eren nodded, happily seating himself next to Levi. It was odd, being out without his sketchbook, being out with no intermediary between him and the outside world, so to speak. He was used to keeping himself preoccupied at these kinds of places by burying himself in a sketch so that he didn't have to actually hold conversations, it easier just to drop in and out of the ones other people were having around him as and when he felt like it.  
  
"It's fine, I'll eat anything that stays still long enough right now, honestly." he replied, patting his stomach as he stripped off his leather jacket. The smell of roast coffee had grown familiar and somewhat comforting over the last few years, if he could ignore the quiet complaining sounds his empty stomach was making, and he leant back into the cushion with a sigh, deciding to make conversation when he was more alive and had actually drank some of the mocha Levi had ordered. The place wasn't too busy so their orders were more or less brought straight over, and Eren practically pounced on his coffee as it was set down - or rather, would have done, were the whipped cream and flake balanced on the top not serving as a small distraction en route to the caffeine jackpot. Weirdly enough there was a strawberry with it too, so he distracted himself by nibbling on the fruit as he eyed his panini.   
  
It wasn't until Levi made a rather interesting noise of contentment that his attention was distracted from his food, his slowed brain clattering to a complete halt as he tried and failed to resist the urge to glance over at him. He didn’t really associate the Levi he knew with that kind of noise, and it was enough to make heat creep across his face again. That just wasn't fair - and it only intensified his resolve to get Levi to stick around longer the next time they went out. Evidently there were a lot of sides to Levi, both that he’d either been unaware of, and that he didn’t even expect to exist. The glance had become more of a silent observation before he knew it, but he wasn’t going to call it staring. That’d just be improper of him.  
  
Maybe Jean's relentless teasing about sexual tension had some credibility after all, but he'd be damned if he was going to be the first person to acknowledge it. They barely knew each other.  
"Is something wrong with your food?"  
"No.. just.. the need for caffeine came first _."_  Eren replied, glancing sheepishly up from his coffee cup.  
"Good mocha?"  
"Yeah, it's good." If it weren’t for knowing how polite Levi came across as, he’d have wondered why he seemed interested in having the approval, but he chose not to comment on it this time. They were long past the point of picking fault, having settled into a place of quiet but tentative comfort with each other.  
"Good. This place is amazing. So glad I found it." Levi replied, concentrating on his panini until Eren spoke up again.  
"It seems like a good place for bookworms. Armin would love it. Is there a story there or was it just pot luck, finding it?"   
"Not particularly. I was just walking one night and I saw it. I was going to get something light from the shop across the road but I saw they had cheesecake, so I headed in here instead. Then I saw their drinks menu."  
"'Heaven's Strongest' seduced by a cheesecake eh?" he teased, rolling his eyes and sighing playfully. "Figures."  
  
" _Strawberry_  cheesecake." Like there was a big difference. Apparently it made all the difference in the world to Levi, that or he had a serious relationship with strawberries."And I could  _marry_  that latte."   
  
If he didn't get the impression that Levi was a bit oblivious to the effect that he had on other people, he could swear the bastard was doing this on purpose. Here he was a week after telling himself he'd decided he didn't like Levi remotely, trying to stop himself being mildly jealous of a slice of cheesecake, of all things. There was something wrong with the world. That or he'd done some very bad things in one of the past lives he didn't remember and was only just receiving the karmic payback.  
  
"Oh I see, so  _I'm_  not good enough for a rebound, but that coffee is?" he joked, trying his best to only fake his indignance although he wasn't sure it was a success.  
"Hmm..."  
"What's the hmm for?"  
"You seem to want to get me horizontal pretty badly, kid."  
"I can see straight over you anyway," Eren quipped, attempting to backtrack while covering the small choking noise Levi's comment had dragged from his throat by taking a long sip of his coffee. "why do I need to get you horizontal?"  
"Trust me, it works better horizontally." He really, _really_ didn't need those particular mental images, thanks very much. Not in the slightest. "Not that I can fathom why you are so offended that you can't have me six ways from Sunday in your bed."  
  
"Most people get offended when told they aren't even worth one night, that’s why." Eren replied, shrugging as he swirled the remaining mocha around his mug. "Then again, it wouldn't work for us anyway, we're colleagues. You wouldn't just get it on with your boss would you?" Except that Levi  _had_ , because his boss was  _Erwin_ , and now he felt like biggest ass on the planet for reminding him, the fact evident by his sudden frown as he rapidly shook his head. "Shit. Wait. Sorry, forget I said that. That's really not helping."  
"No. Not helping at all. I don't have one night stands, Jaeger. Really not who I am."  
"Yeah." he replied, smiling softly despite the annoyed look that had overtaken Levi's previous expression. "For a 'no chick flick moments' person you're a bit of a romantic, sometimes."  
"Oh, what makes you think I'm a romantic?"  
"Speaking as someone who's thoroughly guilty of it too,” Eren followed Levi’s line of sight over at a young couple in a quick, silent glance. “you seem to form really close attachments to people, and then don’t think twice about going out of your way for the people you actually give a shit about."   
"If that kind of thing works for you kid, I tip my metaphorical hat to you."   
  
"No, it doesn't work for me.” Eren replied, frowning a little as Jean flashed through his mind. Although they were quite close and he was all for not being tied down to any one person, it clearly wasn’t something he could just keep doing forever. It wasn’t helping him in the slightest not having someone he could just.. confide in, and depend on, and spend all his energy on providing and being positive for. Other people might be able to go their whole lives as an individual against the world but that wasn’t who Eren was. At least, not right now.“Given it's the reason I'm still a fucking mess over things that happened a whole year ago."   
  
"Then why bother with close attachments if it's just going to hurt you in the long run?"   
"Because if I let it change me that much, then I've lost.” Eren replied, staring down at his empty glass. “I didn't come here to lose any more parts of me."  
It was lose everything or nothing, really, but saying that sounded a little too grim for the tone of the conversation.  
"Then don't let it change you. Simple. What does and doesn't change you is entirely within your control." It sounded so easy when Levi put it like that. Perhaps it _was_ that easy, for him. He’d had a long time to come around to the view, though, and Eren knew he wasn’t that sure of himself yet.  
  
"I won't. That's what I have you for.. just should've seen it sooner." Eren's voice dropped markedly quieter as he stared into his empty cup, barely contemplating whether he should get another or not. He'd liked it, but he got the sense that his presence wasn't exactly helping Levi de-stress.   
"I'm not the best example you should have. Sure you have other people, Jaeger."  
"You're good enough for me." Yes, he had other people in his life, that was true, but they didn't have Levi's experience level, or his patience. They wanted things too. Levi didn't seem to want anything but for Eren to listen to what he was trying to get into his thick skull from time to time.  
"Do you want another drink?"  
  
He shook his head and placed the cup down, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his eyes. "No, thanks. I should probably go. Already stressed you out enough with my stupidity for one day." he muttered absently, making no move to leave despite his words. "Shit like this is why I should stay behind my sketchbooks and just not talk."  
"You just need practice." Levi replied, sliding from his seat and standing as he slipped his wallet from his back pocket. "Meaning yes. You want another drink."  
  
Eren didn't know quite how to respond to that because it seemed like Levi was telling him to stay without actually putting that into words explicitly. He felt like he'd done nothing but disturb him all morning but apparently it wasn't as bad as he took it to be. He knew it would be a while before the coffee he was drinking actually hit his system, and he stifled a brief yawn behind his hand, rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to kill off the tiredness that way.  
  
Grabbing his jacket, he buried his face in it to quiet another brief yawn before shuffling a little closer to Levi and downing his second coffee, chewing thoughtfully on the flake he'd left till last this time as he calculated his chances. It wasn't like they had to be anywhere and the nook was entirely out of the way of anyone else in the coffee-shop, so maybe he might be lucky enough if he put his puppy-dog eyed look to good use.  
  
"Do you mind if I nap?" he asked, voice quiet and uncharacteristically hesitant. "Its not getting too close if I sleep on my jacket.." he didn't know who he was trying to convince with that, but after a few moments of quiet staring which he replied to with his best deliberately adorable puppy dog-eyes, he was greeted with a noncommittal shrug and took that as all the permission he needed, tucking his legs up onto the cushions while careful to leave his feet over the edge in mid air so as not to get his shoes too near the seat as he nestled himself in Levi's lap on top of the jacket and closed his eyes, nuzzling and twitching minutely until he found a comfy spot he could sleep in till the caffeine kicked in.  
  
It was only half an hour or so but Eren blinked awake feeling better for the brief nap than he had done for the nine or so hours of sleep he'd had on Levi's sofa. The sensation of Levi's fingers threading through his hair was soothing and at the same time made his scalp tingle, but he didn't want it to stop, and he had no doubt that if he showed any sign of waking up then it would. So he kept still, his eyes remaining closed and his breathing pattern deliberately slow in the hope that he could stay there for just a bit more.  
  
It was warm, comfortable, and most importantly he hadn't dreamed. Last night had been half filled by odd flashes of his usual recurring nightmare only for him to wake up, shuffle on the sofa, and have nothing for a few hours again before it started up where it left off, but Levi's presence seemed to have killed off the nightmare on its own. A fact that he was intensely glad for given that he didn't want to disturb the coffee shop with his particular brand of loud adverse reactions.  
  
Eventually, though, the caffeine flooding him made it too hard to want to stay still, and he yawned, stretching languidly before getting up and tucking his jacket back into his own lap, arms curled protectively around it as a small smile governed his expression. He knew he should have felt more uncomfortable, but the simple truth was that he didn't. He knew the same probably couldn't be said for Levi though.  
"You're surprisingly comfy." he muttered, wondering whether there was anything he could do to ease the inevitable awkwardness it was starting to occur to him that Levi was inevitably going to feel. He didn't look like the sort to be used to this in the slightest. "Thanks. I slept better there than I did all night.. weird.."  
"Yeah.. Weird."  
  
The moment of silence stretched a little and Eren cleared his throat, sensing that it was time to leave. Levi looked suddenly tense and it felt more than a little awkward. Not that Eren could blame him since he was the moron who’d fallen asleep on him like they were old friends when they barely knew each other.  
"I have to get going.. kind of need to check and make sure Armin knows I'm still alive and isn’t burying himself in work given that its the weekend."   
"Ok. Sure. Yeah. See you on Monday. Enjoy your weekend."   
"You too."   
  
Eren left with the intention of going nowhere but home. He already felt a little guilty that Levi seemed to be closing himself off again, and he had no doubt that it was because he’d fallen asleep on him.   
  
He was determined to spend the weekend not thinking about Levi at all, though, so he forced the older nephilim from his mind and focused on trying to sort out in his own mind several of the more pressing thoughts demanding his attention. Like why wasn’t he feeling in the least bit slighted that he hadn’t ended up going home with Jean this time. That was a discussion they needed to have at some point, but he didn’t know whether the long faced bastard would even be alive yet, and he wasn’t going to risk it.  
  
Besides that, he should probably go and see Armin exactly as he’d said he was going to, the blond’s closed front door staring at him from across the hallway as he tried to ignore the fact that it existed, unlocking his own. If it came to it, he could always ring up later. Right now he had crappy daytime TV to watch.  
  
*****  
  
As it turned out his attempt was a pathetic failure, but he slept relatively undisturbed for a change. Monday morning dawned with a well rested Eren actually looking forward to going into HQ for a change – because now that he had made his mind up about Levi to the point where at least he knew that he wanted to make sure they were friends, his next thing on the to-do list was to do some serious research on the time period he came from. Might as well put some of his acquired skills as a student to use.  
  
He got to his desk to find a memo on it telling him to head down to the training room when he got in, though, so it seemed that Levi had plans other than letting him figure out how best to get close to him _without_ making him feel as though he was trying to put the moves on him. For all his joking around he didn’t actually want to repeat what he’d done with Jean with someone else, because he was the last person he’d argued that badly with, and it had ended up in meaningless sex that he already knew neither he nor Levi would appreciate in the end.  
  
“Got your memo.” The words and the clattering of the training room door opening and shutting were his way of announcing himself. Expecting Levi to be there alone, he skidded to a stop when he saw Armin sitting on one of the benches, all geared up. He already suspected that he knew what Levi had invited the blond down here for, and it wasn’t going to end well. “Tell me this isn't what I think it is.”  
Armin ignored his pleading, offering him a weary grin.  
“Sorry, Eren, but it’s exactly what you think it is.”

“The mushroom is right." Levi’s voice caught his attention as the two of them walked over from the bench to the matting, and he resisted the urge to sigh and fold his arms, to close himself off from what he already knew was going to end up a bad situation. “I need to see your fighting skills from a point of view that's not in front of you."  
  
"Promise I'll go easy on you.” Armin taunted, clearly trying to goad him past his discomfort. “I know you still whine like a little bitch when you get your wings trapped."   
It was a fair enough point, one that he couldn’t really argue with.. but did it have to be Armin? Could he not at least give him a free pass to give Jean a good kicking for getting him to dance on that goddamn bar? He wouldn’t feel half as guilty about hurting Jean as he would for this.  
  
"Quiet, you traitor. I do no such thing.” Eren replied, frowning, not fooled for a second as he threw his jacket in the corner and took his boots off and then headed over, taking up the space Levi had previously occupied as the older nephilim backed off toward the wall to pick a different vantage point. “Fine. I'll play along, but for the record I don't like this."  
“You don't need to like it. You just need to do it. Arlert was well aware before he agreed to come down here what he was signing up for.”  
  
"Alright. I said I'd learn from you so if this is what you need... just don't let me hurt him too badly." He pointedly ignored Armin muttering something under his breath, not catching the words, as he tried to settle himself into the reality that he was going to somehow have to do this properly. He could guess what Levi wanted to see him do already and there was the very real possibility that it wasn’t going to end as well as it had with him.  
"If he can't stop you, you know I will. I won't let you hurt him."  
And somehow, despite all the what ifs, that was good enough for him.  
  
The way Armin fought was starkly different to how Levi did – where Levi was still and careful, Armin was skittish and restive, relying vastly on the speed of both his brain and his body to keep himself out of Eren’s reach.  
  
It was obviously a poorly matched fight, though, because it took Eren a fraction of the same effort to turn the tables on him. A swift roundhouse kick to the solar plexus cut short another attempt to evade him, and then as Armin doubled over, completely winded and coughing, he wrapped an arm across his shoulders, coiled one ankle around the back of his and slammed the shorter blond to the matted floor, pausing to let him recover. His expression was patient, careful, nothing like the agitation and wariness that he had shown with Levi. It was clear on his face that this was nothing but running through practice drills to him.  
  
It was clear he’d let his guard down as he folded his arms, waiting for Armin to get up, so he was totally clothes-lined as Armin swung both heels up and then kicked him square in the jaw, sending him sprawling across the matting with a hiss of pain, white lights popping behind his eyes.  
“You little shit.” he groaned from the floor, rubbing his head as he tried to get the world to stop spinning. “That wasn’t nice.”  
“Neither is underestimating me.” Armin informed him primly. “Now get up and try again.”  
“Fuck,” he whined, having heard that particular order too many times in this life already from their silent observer. “Since when did you start sounding like Levi..”  
“Since you started letting your guard down for a pretty face. Get your ass up and take me seriously, Eren.”  
“I’ll take you something, alright.” Not about to be lectured, Eren pulled himself back to his feet and ploughed straight back in, vowing that he wasn’t going to be satisfied with just putting Armin on the floor. This time he was going to pin him and keep him there until he felt like moving again.  
"Which is definitely why I didn't choose  _Kirschtein_  for this. Stop with the chatter. Again."  
  
After the small interruption from Levi, they were going again as if they hadn’t stopped the delicate process of trying to floor each other in the slightest. Just like Levi, Armin dodged everything he could, and while Eren was wondering why the fuck he was comparing everything to Levi today he took another kick to the shoulder. This time, though, he allowed his body to twist with the blow, grabbing the leather strapping around Armin’s calf and yanking him sharply off balance.  
  
The blond let out a startled yelp, flailed, and then fell, using his arms to catch himself before he hit the floor and spinning his other leg around to kick the back of Eren’s head. The attempt felt like it rattled his teeth, his hands slipping from the leather as Armin dropped to the floor and then shifted his centre of gravity low and aimed for Eren’s gut, trying to get him to the floor by putting his wings into the movement.  
  
It worked, and Armin ended up straddling him, but the blond ended up surprise when Eren closed his eyes, concentrating all his energy on getting the movement right from memory as he copied Levi’s tactic, swinging his legs up over Armin’s back and cinching his knees around his wing joints to paralyse the smaller blond. They both halted, panting with exertion, and then Armin smirked and wrapped his hands around Eren’s throat, squeezing just slightly.  
  
“You’re not even trying, are you?” he remarked idly, his torso remaining still to prevent any agitation to his wings as Eren raised his head defiantly. No, he wasn’t trying too hard. Because he didn’t want to let himself be pushed that far. He didn’t want to scare Armin or worse, hurt him. The fact that they could easily be healed because they were in HQ wasn’t the point. He tightened the grip with his knees, pulling now and knowing from the blond’s reflexive grimace that the hold was definitely making him ache, but in response Armin tightened his grip on his throat to the point where if he squeezed any more Eren was going to start choking. “‘Don’t let me hurt him’, my ass.”  
  
It was a deliberate attempt to push Eren into losing his temper, just as he knew Levi was probably hanging back to see, and he looked up from where he was straddling Eren to glance at the Lance Corporal to see if he wanted him to stop there and restart, or was happy for him to carry on winding Eren up till he snapped.  
  
Despite spending most of his weekend alone practicing he knew the effort to pin Armin’s wings had only worked because Armin was, conveniently, an exact match for Levi’s height. If he’d tried that on anyone with even a slight height difference the first time would have been a complete failure. That or he’d have ended up kicking him in the face.  
  
“It’s not going to work, Armin. I trained with you, remember? I know your weak points.” he replied, pulling with his legs to yank on the blond’s wings and prove a point.  
“I know yours too.” the blond argued.  
Armin went quiet immediately after, evidently concentrating, and Eren’s grip on his wings slipped as they disappeared under him. He hadn’t had the concentration to do that to Levi when he’d been pinned, but Armin wasn’t having that problem. He was up and gone in seconds, rolling sideways and then getting up in the air with a quick sweep of his wings.  
  
Eren followed him, outstretched fingers just missing his ankles, and then had to rapidly dodge backwards as Armin used the wall as a kick-off point to flip himself over and try to hit him. It was the start of a long gap in any serious contact as Armin dodged while taking odd chances to strike back and Eren pursued him, trying to think of a way to get him down that wasn’t going to be fatal. Both of them could only stay in the air for so long, however, their wings quickly tiring.  
  
Armin landed first, quickly pitching himself into a backward roll in order to avoid Eren hitting the floor, and he skidded to a stop balanced up on one knee, smirking. He knew how to hurt Eren the most, could make him lose his focus completely in a matter of a few sentences… but it would hurt. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t really concerned about getting hurt himself, it was more that he already knew what came after as far as Eren was concerned because he’d seen it once before. He didn’t want to be the cause of that.  
But he had to, otherwise this whole morning would go to waste, and he wanted Eren to get back to hunting. He couldn’t do that unless Levi got what he wanted from both of them.  
  
“Don’t be a disappointment, Eren.” the brunet came skidding to a stop just in front of him, and from the pained look on his face he knew exactly what Armin was trying to do. Because he knew it would work. Armin knew just how to kick him when he was down. Silent, he shoved him into the wall behind them instead, green eyes flickering with regret as Armin flinched and he was only just aware of Levi moving on the periphery to keep a closer eye on them. “You do it often enough as it is. Couldn’t even last two hunts before you fucked up again.”  
“Don’t.”  
“Then  _beat me_. It’s not that hard. Have you got  _worse_  than you were as a trainee?”  
_“Armin.”_  the word was quiet, frayed, Eren’s temper starting to snap as he willed himself not to listen, turning his head away.  
“What? Prove me wrong.” the blond replied as he grabbed Eren’s wrists and pried his grip loose, clearly unmoved. “If you don’t you’re deliberately wasting time, and there’s only two people that insults. Two _dead_ people your whining does nothing to help.”  
  
He was always slightly annoyed of the fact that mentioning his parents was the one thing he couldn’t deal with – but now he was annoyed because Armin knew that and did it anyway. Whether it was at Levi’s behest or not wasn’t the point as far as the blinding rage inside him was concerned. It was like watching himself move without having much control over it, feeling himself totally cut off as something flipped in his brain exactly as it had before. If Armin wanted this so badly that he was prepared to bring up his parents then that was what he would get.  
  
He tilted his head to the side, his glare deadly cold as he homed in on the sight of Armin biting his lip, knowing exactly what he was in for just by the harshness of Eren’s grip. Then Eren’s weight shifted, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back to slam Armin into to the wall on his front. The recoil and the feeling of all the breath being knocked out of him in one blow wasn’t in the least satisfying, the anger coiling ugly and bitter inside Eren’s gut demanding to see blood now he’d started.  
  
It was more or less instantly a one sided fight, Eren’s movements fast and precise as he dropped the shorter blond to the floor and one hand twisted harsher, threatening to break the wrist in his grip if he moved while Eren went for the knife strapped to his thigh, legs pinning Armin’s as he wasn’t given any time or space to challenge the hold on him, left dazed by his head slamming to the matting only to hissed cry of pain as Eren buried the knife in his hand into Armin’s wing joint at the shoulder. It wasn’t enough to incapacitate him but to his anger-blurred mind it was certainly enough to prove his point loud and clear.

He barely felt Levi pull him away and effectively throw him a safe distance, although it was done quickly enough that Levi had obviously been watching them extremely closely. Quite apart from Armin’s expression of pain he seemed to have instantly reacted to the sight of blood flecking his silver wing as the knife hit home.  
  
Eren crumpled to the floor on his knees as his brain caught up, dead weight, his gut instinct roaring at him. He _knew_ this was going to be a bad idea and here it was, the reality that he’d hurt _Armin_ this time pounding in his veins like a smog cloud. He should never have trusted Levi to get between them when they were so far away, he should never have _agreed_ to this in the first place. Levi’s quiet words to Armin were lost amid the static hum of panic clawing through his brain and forming what felt like an iron grip on his chest. His breaths ran into each other, short and fast and racing to get in and out of him as quickly as possible as he receded into himself.  
  
Fear took over as he tucked his knees into his chest and buried his head on top of them, hiding his face with his hands. Even if it was only a small wound, able to be healed in minutes under the right hands, his brain had taken it and ran. It was small right now, sure. But next time? Next time he might not stop there. Next time it might be someone more important. Next time it might get whoever he was with and himself in serious trouble. And he couldn’t be useful to _anyone_ like this. It was pathetic, the way he could barely catch his breath and his head was spinning, every instinct screaming at him to get away but his body too weak to react to anything but the squeezing pain in his chest.  
“Eren, stay with me, just breathe for me.”  
  
Levi’s voice faded into his awareness as his presence appeared at his side. Just breathe, he said. Like it was so easy when he just… _couldn’t_. He was trying, but he couldn’t do anything. _Pathetic_.  
“I can’t.” he somehow managed to rasp it out around hyperventilating breaths. “Can’t breathe.”  
“Of course you can.” Levi’s voice was low and comforting, now, and he deliberately forced himself to latch onto it as best he could, desperate to get around the pain in his chest somehow and knowing this was going to leave him feeling like absolute shit when it was over. He was going to have to go to the medical wing without having received much more than typical impact trauma from the training fight, not a scratch on him. “You’re doing it now, but you sound a little too quick..”  
“Of course.. I do.. it’s a fucking panic attack..” he shot back, his anxiety increasing when his own attempt to calm himself didn’t take at all. “Oh god.. I didn’t.. didn’t want.. I fucking _knew_ this would happen..”  
“I can see what you’re having, Eren, but there is no need, really. Armin is fine, he’s up and walking.” Of course there was no need, Eren’s inner sarcasm quipped. When had there ever been any _need_ for his stupid body to decide a panic attack was a good idea?! He didn’t voice it, though, wanting to save the energy for just trying to ride it all through. “All that you need to do is take deep breaths.”  
“Why.. _why_ can I never.. just fucking..” He couldn’t get the rhythm of deep breaths to stick out, and was rapidly becoming all the more frustrated because something as simple as breathing should be easy. And it wasn’t. “How am I supposed to be useful to anyone like this?!” He wanted to be angry, but it came out as a faint, frustrated whine.  
“That’s not true. You are very useful.”  
He disagreed.  
“I didn’t stop. How am I supposed to be trusted to hunt if _I can’t stop_.”  
“Because you learn. Because you get better at it.” It sounded so much simpler than it felt when it was coming from Levi’s mouth, and he almost couldn’t help but believe him, his breaths starting to come a little easier now. “You will know when to stop. You stopped last time all by yourself and I am rather proud of you for that.”  
  
"Never done that before. I only stop when they're dead.. and I nearly.. was going to.." The inevitable nausea followed rapidly as he let the thought play out but didn’t voice it, knowing neither of them would believe him capable for a second. Most of the time he didn’t either, but then things like this happened, and he was reminded just how little he knew himself and what he could and couldn’t do. "Thanks. For getting there first."  
"It speaks wonders that you were able to and you'd never done it before, Eren, really. I will be there first for as long as you need me to. I mean that most sincerely."   
"Okay. Feels a bit better now."  
"Are you sure? If you are better, how about lifting your head to give that mouth of yours space to breath perhaps?  
"Maybe in a minute.” It had been several, now, maybe nearly ten, who the fuck knew because he hadn’t been keeping track. All he knew was that he was breathing a lot easier now and didn’t feel as bad as he had before, managing to sit up a little. “Just make sure Armin's okay. I'll be fine."  
"I know for a fact that he is perfectly fine, Eren."  
  
He wasn’t going to risk a look, as he didn’t exactly want to set himself off again twice as badly if Armin’s wing was covered in blood.  
"I'm fine. Really. Just fine. He's the one.. bleeding.. fuck.."  
"He's not bleeding Eren, I swear. He's fine. He might not look it but he's a tough cookie. Don't forget I've hunted with him." Just the thought was making his chest hurt again, but apparently Levi could see that and was thankfully dead set on preventing it, as the memory of hearing Armin talk about Levi made him smile a little.  
"I remember that. You scared the fuck out of him."  
"That's the stunning effect I normally have, kid. You are the shining exception."  
"Yeah. I'm the only person around here stupid enough to try scaring you off instead."  
"I do hope you aren't still trying to scare me off though kid, that'd be a such an annoying stack of paperwork I wouldn't want to do." Levi leant forwards, a smirk returning to his face as he brushed against Eren’s side in the process.  
  
“If I was, we wouldn’t be here.” Eren replied, finally feeling grounded enough to raise his head a fraction. He still couldn’t see Armin but he presumed that was because the blond was staying out of his line of sight until he completely stopped bleeding. Armin had seen him like this before, so he already knew what Eren could and couldn’t handle. “I can’t hate someone who’s too fucking nice to me..” he grumbled, the words a little lost through his arm.  
  
“Hey, I’m a saint, remember?”  
_“What?!”  
_ “Well, apparently…” Levi’s somewhat conspiratorial smirk was met with notably straighter posture and an incredulous look on Eren’s face, now, the young nephilim starting to unfold again although his wings hugged his sides slightly. “I’m a ‘cute grumpy saint’, according to a drunken you from Friday morning at 3:30AM.”  
“Fuck my life.. I don’t remember _any_ of that..” Eren sighed, wanting to shrink back again. He must have been absolutely trollied, christ only knew what Levi thought of him. He didn’t even _remember_ it, not a word of the whole supposed conversation.  
Maybe this was a sign to cut back on the partying a little.  
  
Levi leant back slightly, looking away and upward as his smirk grew.  
“It was _adorable_ , Jaeger, have to admit.”  
“Shit. I’m never drinking that much again if that’s the kind of thing I come out with.”  
He vaguely heard Armin snort in soft derision behind him, and had to admit even to himself that ‘I’m never drinking again’ was a lie he told himself once too often for the declaration to have a shred of credibility to it.  
“It wasn’t _that_ bad. You did take forever to get your damn shoes off though.”  
“Wasn’t that bad?” Eren echoed, one eyebrow raised, before he just shrugged and decided to conveniently forget the whole conversation had been held, even now he’d been reminded of it. That was the kind of stupidity just not worthy of remembering, otherwise it’d turn into invasive thoughts every time he thought too much about Levi and what he must think of him. He had enough of those already. “Eh, to be honest I’m more shocked that I apparently called you cute, and you didn’t hit me.”  
“You were too drunk to hit. You looked like a little defenceless lost puppy as it was.” Levi’s head tilted sideways as he caught Eren’s eye, the smirk on his face seeming almost ever-present at this point.  
  
Eren closed his eyes, able to feel the intense squeezing sensation in his chest slowly decrease to almost nothing as his breathing pattern normalised fully. He was still silently counting the breaths in and out, though, conscious of the rapidity of his heartbeat. This time he recognised the attempt to distract him for what it was, taking it with both hands.  
  
He had to tell himself not to think about what he’d just done. To think about Friday instead – or rather, what he could remember of it, which honestly wasn’t much. Even though he’d definitely regained more of it by now than he’d had come Saturday morning.  
“I take offense at that.” he groused, hugging his knees a little tighter as his wings drooped from around his shoulders, noticeably relaxing now, but still keeping his eyes shut for another few seconds to be doubly sure he was okay again. “I’m not a lost puppy except when I want something.”  
  
And it was true, Eren knew how to abuse being ‘cute’ to get what he wanted sometimes, not above using it as blackmail. It had apparently even worked on Levi from the sounds of it, something he was going to file away for later. It bugged him that he had taken part in a whole conversation with Levi that he somehow didn’t really remember though, because god only knew what else he’d said.  
  
“Well you clearly wanted _something_ , that’s for sure.”  
Eren blinked and shrugged. He wasn’t going to lie about what he was like when he was drunk, there wasn’t any point to it.  
“I was drunk, you’re kinda hot. It happens.”  
“Just ‘ _kinda_ hot’? Gee. Thanks.”  
Eren blushed, then, cursing the blood rushing to his face and even up to the tips of his ears. Levi wasn’t supposed to be disappointed.  
“You know what I meant.”  
“That I’m subpar in the level of hotness…”  
  
It was surprising how quickly Levi had been able to talk him down, especially after last time, but somehow it had worked. What would have been half a day wasted getting himself calm again was no longer necessary, even if he was certain he’d be avoiding sleep for a day, because there was no way he was going to be able to avoid the nightmares now. Not when he knew how close he’d come to doing serious damage because he couldn’t control his anger. It was like there was no easy middle ground, either he held back and got hurt or shut everything else away and ended up hurting the people he wanted to help protect. Which of course only served to frustrate him further.  
  
Besides that, he was rather unused to the idea that Levi was the one making joking passes at him for a change – although he harboured no illusions that it was for any other purpose than to distract him. He knew he was royally fucked when he realised that the playful smirk was something he wouldn’t mind seeing for the long term, wouldn’t mind waking up to, even. Levi had entered his daily existence like a storm that refused to let up, unsettling everything he thought he’d got safely locked and categorised, and now it was like he didn’t want it to stop anymore. Despite trying to get them both reassigned to other people he couldn’t imagine coming to work without having Levi around, couldn’t cope with the idea of going out of his way to avoid meeting him as he had done before.  
“Well your competition has decided to throw in the towel, so it doesn’t matter if you’re subpar.” he replied, just about able to return the playful smirk with one of his own. “At this point you already won me over.”  
  
Levi’s smirk faded, then, and Eren swallowed as he noticed the sudden lack of the playful atmosphere that had existed between them a few seconds ago. A hand was extended to him to help him up which he gladly accepted, feeling a little stiff and sore given the abrupt stop of their sparring session.  
“You’re free to go for today, unless you want to continue?”  
“I’ll be fine. The only way I’m going to get past this is practice.”  
  
“Sometimes too much practice can be a bad thing, Mr Jaeger.”


	9. Clarity 8.2 - Contusion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I'm a butt, I meant to post this last week. Seeya next week for chapter 9 <3  
> The next chapter follows a substantial timeskip and will finally get to the smut. Ish. ;)  
> Music for this chapter is 'Can't Sleep Can't Breathe' by Digital Daggers.  
> As usual, find me on Tumblr or Twitter as mystitrinqua. Currently Firrie and I are beta-ing each other's chapters(ish) so please excuse any mistakes. Levi's POV can be found here - http://archiveofourown.org/works/2618813

Eren nearly slipped as Levi released his hand, Erwin strolling into the room stealing the attention of all three of them. He looked around with a casual air, taking stock of them and how damaged they were from the sparring session, and Levi met him with an expression just as casual despite his arrival creating an atmosphere so heavy even _he_ could pick up on it as they locked eyes.  
“Commander.”  
“Lance Corporal.” Erwin’s use of the title sounded a lot fonder than Levi’s, and something about that unsettled him. He’d have thought that there would be more hesitance, perhaps, given that Erwin knew full well his intrusion was essentially an act of poking at a fresh wound. Apparently not. “I heard you were training this morning.”  
“When did my training with Jaeger become your concern?”  
"Mr Jaeger, Mr Arlert, would you be so kind as to give us some privacy? I'm sure the Lance Corporal will be able to reschedule the rest of your session."  
  
Eren nodded, although his attention was almost completely on Levi and the way that he had tensed up as soon as Erwin addressed him by his title. He didn't like this, the way Erwin had just swanned in and expected to completely commandeer the session just because he wanted to have a conversation that could wait, but for his own impatience.  
  
It wasn't that he didn't have a great amount of respect for the Commander too, quite the opposite, but a nagging distaste was starting to linger whenever his thoughts touched on him. Erwin had been around a lot longer than he had, and yet somehow still apparently thought it was okay just to mess around with Levi, when he must have _known_ he didn't like it. That didn't sit right.  
  
Still, he had no idea what time period Erwin came from. There didn’t seem anything that stood out about his mannerisms – he had no recognisable slang patterns Eren could use to place his accent because he always spoke formally, he dressed like any respectable businessman on New York’s streets would in order to blend in, and didn’t seem to have any sentimental accessories at all. It was true he was always seen wearing a bolo tie with a green gem in it when at work, but that was a rank signifier and not something with personal significance. He was composed and efficient all the time, conveying an air of being a man who had already found all the answers to the pressing questions in his little world, to the point where to be honest it creeped Eren out a little. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Erwin run, or even lose his temper.  
No one was supposed to look quite _that_ put together, he was sure.  
  
"Come on, Eren."  
He was carefully avoiding looking at Armin's shoulder, the blond's wing still folded to help stop any bleeding and one hand clamped over his shoulder, but he turned in his direction anyway when he heard him prompting, handing him the messenger bag he'd brought down with his things in while he was away from his desk.  
"Nah, I'm going to stay for a while. You should be heading to the infirmary anyway." he replied, hoping Armin would get the message.  
"He can look after himself, you know, even if you were having quite the moment back there." Although Armin's voice was playful enough, his expression was guarded and unsettled, and that was enough for Eren to know he was worried about how close the two of them were getting even if he wasn't going to voice it. "Lance Corporal Levi isn't Jean. You can't just get over arguments with him with the odd night of.. well.. bribery."  
"I know." He didn't particularly need that reminder, because he already knew that you couldn't even compare the two of them, not really. Their similarities on hunts were the only thing they had in common apart from their sarcasm.  
  
They parted ways there, Armin heading for the lift while he quietly doubled back, heading for the viewing balcony on the second floor and sitting himself on the floor just inside so that he could hear their conversation, but couldn't be seen. He knew he was snooping, but the split second urge just to make sure that Levi was okay completely overruled any sensible thought about this being a bad idea.  
  
"I'm not done, Levi."  
"I sure as hell am. You can't just waltz in here like this anymore. I don't care what your rank is. You said you were going to give me space and not interfere."  
Levi already sounded more annoyed than he had been letting on while Eren and Armin were still in the room, and it made his frown deepen.  
"And I am, but that boy isn't doing you any favours. You might be helping him work through his own issues, his anger, but yours sure as hell isn't going anywhere anytime soon." There was a pause and a clatter of metal and fabric, but he wasn't going to risk peeking over the handrail to see why Erwin had stopped. "I'm here to help."  
He barely resisted the urge to scoff at that, because Erwin was the _cause_ of most of Levi's issues right now and he must know that. So what did he hope to achieve by interrupting like this when Levi had clearly asked him for space? Was he here to try and patch things up after apparently being the one to end whatever they had between them?  
  
Somehow the thought dug at him, and he already knew it shouldn't be doing, because there was no way he should even be getting involved in any of this. Levi was effectively his boss, nothing else, barely really even his friend yet despite whatever he'd seen fit to do in his drunken state on friday morning. Nothing more.. right?  
So why was this bothering him?  
Why couldn't he just leave?  
  
"Seriously?" Levi's tone was pure incredulity but he heard the quiet creak of the matting, suggesting he was either walking further away from him or had been persuaded to give Erwin a chance to do whatever he'd come here for."You never spar."  
"I will for you."  
"I'm not going to attack you, Erwin." The words had barely left Levi’s mouth when he heard footsteps and the tell-tale creak of matting that meant despite what he’d said seconds earlier Levi was at the very least defending himself.  
"Either you've lost your touch, or for some reason you're holding back on me.."  
"I've not lost my touch."  
"Then quit being a child and stop holding back on me."  
  
More movement, although Eren noted he never heard either of their wings – which was probably a good thing because if they started flying they’d probably spot him hidden beneath the rail on the balcony, listening to the whole thing – and then he heard Levi hiss a distracted, barely audible curse under his breath that was rapidly followed by a slamming sound, so he presumed that he’d been trapped somehow.  
"Definitely lost your touch,  _Corporal._ "  
  
The inflection of the word made Eren grimace, wondering whether he really wanted to be here to listen to them settling their differences in an entirely different way than fighting it out. His mind flicked back to Levi being under him, his wrists pinned to the matting above his head, and he shivered. It was obvious now exactly why Levi had frozen up when he did it and the thought made him feel ill.  
  
There was another slamming sound, and Eren risked a peek over the top of the railing to see what was going on. His heart lurched in his throat when he saw Erwin laid out with Levi straddling him, pinning his arms flat to the floor with a somewhat playful expression even though the tension in his shoulders belied that what he felt was probably closer to slow-boiling fury than any more r-rated intentions.  
"I assure you, I have not. I just can't be doing with your bullshit right now. What gives you the right to stride in here like you still own me?"  
  
There was a pause, the two of them staring each other down. Erwin’s usual complacency was replaced with what looked like frustration, though, and Levi’s blankness held a tinge of sadness to it. He’d never seen the Commander look like this unless they were in a situation where they were taking heavy losses and he was finding out in real time, and Eren had only been around for one occasion where the whole of HQ’s active team had to be mobilised at once.  
“I never owned you Levi, and I never will. I never intended to either, for the record.”  
“You had no right coming here today.”  
“I run the place, Levi, of course I did.”  
_“No.”_ The word was a whiplash, and Eren recoiled at it regardless of whether or not it was aimed his way. Suddenly he didn’t want to be in Erwin’s position at all. “You don’t get to interfere with my life. Personal or professional. You promised to give me space and you haven’t done that.”  
“I didn’t think you’d need so much…”  
  
The slightly regretful reply made him wince, knowing it was entirely the wrong thing to say judging by Levi’s tone. He imagined it would be rather hard for Erwin to stay entirely out of Levi’s life given the close proximity at which they worked, though. Not that it meant Erwin automatically had a free pass to swan in whenever he liked. Couldn’t have your cake _and_ eat it, and all that.  
“Of course I fucking would.” Levi shot back. “What did you expect? That I didn’t _care?_ That I didn’t give a crap about what happened between us?! That’s not me and you fucking know it!”  
Erwin wasn’t fighting back, just allowing Levi to raise his voice and get in his face with a small smile on his lips, and the sight left him slightly confused. Was it just because he’d rather Levi get it all out in one go and move on? Or was he here to try and reclaim him?  
“You don’t get to tell me you’re ending it because you want me to give my attention and focus to somewhere else entirely, and then come and _interrupt_ it when I was doing just that! No, that’s _not_ how this works.”  
“Would you rather I’d not come in here?”  
“I’d rather the brat was still here.” Eren’s voice caught in his throat at the sound of his nickname. He hadn’t expected that Levi would rather be around him than Erwin, even if they were fighting. “At least I can teach him something useful, instead I’m here, fighting you when I should be sparring with him.”  
  
That was the point at which Eren decided he needed to stop listening. This argument was getting more personal than he should have been privy to and he could tell just from his voice that Levi was.. well, upset was too strong a word.. but he wasn't happy. And if he stayed and had to sit and listen to Erwin ignore it and continue to push when he should have known better then he was going to do something that would only get him in trouble.  
  
He waited until he'd got out of sight of the balcony before he stood up, fishing in his pocket for his iPod and headphones, and then heading back down the stairs to sit by the entryway of the training room to make it look like he'd just seen Armin off and then been there not listening because he had music on. He got himself comfortable just in time to see Erwin leave, not looking particularly amused himself but not paying him any attention, and then made a small show of stretching just incase Levi ended up following him out.  
He didn’t.  
  
And this unsettled him even more, because it meant that he was probably sat stewing in his thoughts over whatever Erwin had said in the interim while he wasn't in ear shot. So he moved, not about to betray his uncertainty by hovering at the door, and sat himself down on the bench next to Levi, not looking at him and not speaking for a moment. He didn't want the Lance Corporal to feel like he had to talk if he didn't want to. He didn't owe him anything, and Eren barely expected what odd bits and pieces of the real him that he let slip through the mask provided by his rank, despite how much he enjoyed seeing them when they did.  
  
"Was he being an ass?" his voice was tired, tentative, his hesitancy there to convey the point that he was only there to offer company rather than demand something from Levi. That he appreciated that he probably wouldn't want to talk or explain anything.  
  
“When is he _not_ being such an ass.” Finishing lacing up his other boot after having been putting them on when he walked in, Levi shook his head. “You should probably go get some lunch before they stop serving.”  
  
There wasn't much chance of that happening. Eren had absolutely no appetite right now and really doubted he would all day. That hadn't been one of his worst occasions of panic attacks so it hopefully might not affect him so much, but he still felt like death warmed up and needed to lie down for a few hours. "Sorry for the session being cut short. But when the  _Commander_  wishes it..."  
  
"It's understandable. He does have the run of the place, after all." It was clear just by his distinctly unimpressed tone that Eren was annoyed at the man in question, though, and he was going to make precisely no excuses or apologies for that. "Not that that's any reason to come and interrupt anything for what looked like entirely not work-related reasons. Not very professional." Which was so hypocritical of him it was almost ludicrous for him to say, all things considered, but oh well.  
  
Pushing off the bench, he stretched again and stood up, taking a few steps to the door before sighing heavily. His mind wouldn't let him leave without voicing his opinion even if he knew it probably wouldn't matter very much in the long run.  
"He's not fucking you around, is he? Because that's not okay. I know you don't need a guard dog and I'm the last person you probably want to talk to about it.. but he knows you too well to have any excuse for it."  
"I don't, you're right. And you are more puppy dog than guard dog, kid." Levi smirked, throwing his jacket over his shoulders and heading past Eren and towards the door. Watching him go, Eren glanced around the empty room and sighed.

* * *

 _2 Weeks Later  
  
_ Eren was pulled away from helping Armin farm gold on _World of Warcraft_ by a knock at the door, murmuring a quick apology to him before taking off his headset and logging off. He had painfully little interest in MMO’s but it was a way to spend more time with Armin doing something he enjoyed, so he didn’t mind.  
  
Opening the door quickly banished his cheerful mood when he saw Marco standing there with Levi, holding him up because he evidently couldn’t stand unaided. He couldn’t think what could possibly have happened, because Levi wasn’t hunting… but Marco’s guilty look as he glanced at the blood on Levi’s clothes reminded him that it’d been Marco’s tryout hunt with Levi tonight. If he’d done alright on his own, he’d have been allowed to do more risky hunting jobs than the boring but low-risk stakeouts they were giving Jean and Marco right now so that the freckled nephilim got a little more experience of being in the field without having to actually defend himself in a fight.  
Judging from the blood, it hadn’t.  
“The fuck happened?!”  
"He refuses to go to HQ.” Marco sounded exasperated as Levi pulled away from him, glaring and stubbornly attempting to prove he could move on his own. Eren could appreciate not wanting to get poked at by Hanji but in this condition... “I suggested you as an alternative to save him going home in this condition. You were closer."  
“Get the fuck in.”  
  
Eren walked off to get the first aid kit from under the sink, already feeling a familiar panicky sensation starting to fester in his chest. In the meantime it looked like Marco had been able to get Levi over to the bar stools by the counter, his slightly blood-soaked white wings having been hidden from view as he leant forward, hunched over the countertop. Marco looked up as he came over, the guilt in his gentle brown eyes only accentuated by the concern on his face.  
  
Eren was mostly worried because he had no idea how much of the blood was Levi’s own, or where it was coming from if it was. He didn’t know if he’d suffered any head wounds during the fight and if the slumping was because he had a concussion. He needed Hanji for a second opinion before he’d be completely happy that Levi would be okay, but Marco’s concerned hovering wasn’t really helping any of them.  
“The hell happened?” he asked, setting the first aid kit down on the counter. Usually it was only used to treat his own small wounds, or Armin’s, but thankfully it had more heavy duty grade items in it too.  
  
“We were ambushed.” Marco explained, wincing as though he thought it was his fault. “Legion, they wanted to take him. Put up a stunning fight, though. He got injured saving my life.”

He was having enough of a hard time reminding himself that the injury would heal on its own because it was a legion that’d caused it, but a protective, sick feeling welled up in his gut when he learnt they were explicitly targeting Levi. This was probably why Erwin had him cooped up in HQ as much as he could, training new recruits and doing paperwork. It seemed like whenever he went out threats sprang up from the woodwork just to have a go at taking Levi out. As much as he was glad Marco’s life had been spared, thinking about it was making his hands shaky and Marco himself looked like he wanted to drop. Perhaps this would finally be the thing that brought Jean and Marco closer together than they had been, he mused.  
Not that it’d help him, right now.  
  
“Get gone, Bodt,” Levi ordered. “I’m pretty sure if you were meeting Jean, he’ll be worried by now.” He’d have been worried anyway, Eren knew. Marco was his mentee and his first time out on a mission in the field he was going without Jean. The idiot was probably pacing a hole in the carpet of his apartment waiting for Marco to walk back through the door in one piece, or for the phone to ring with the worst news.  
  
A little more diplomatic in his approach than Levi, Eren smiled at Marco and nodded, the majority of his attention on Levi and cataloguing what he could already see. He hadn’t done a lot in college in terms of practical testing given how quickly into the course he died, but he’d spent enough time learning basic first aid from his father as a child and had done the most basic field medicine during his initial trainee period anyway, so he was fairly confident that he was as well informed as most of the front line medical staff in HQ even if he wasn’t anywhere near as equipped.  
“Go, Marco. He’ll be fine.” he instructed, trying to sound friendly but firm just the same. “Let Jean take care of you.”  
  
The freckled teen glanced at Levi’s impassive but quietly murderous expression, nodded, and showed himself out, leaving the two of them to sort everything else out themselves. While glad of the silence and the abrupt lack of a third party, Levi’s clothes were wrecked where the blades had shorn skin, so he had unknown levels of internal bleeding to worry about on top of everything else.  
“Right. Get these off, I need to see what I’m patching up.” Eren’s focus narrowed in on the wounds and the shift in perspective showed, his hands stilling as his stance became clear and calm after his first new breath. As Armin called it, he’d assumed ‘mothering mode’, and that meant that what nervousness he’d usually have when it came to touching Levi was nonexistent now.  
  
With little other than a raised eyebrow and slow movements from the hand that wasn’t keeping pressure on the wound in order to help him, the two of them worked to get through taking off the clothing shielding Levi’s upper half – jacket folded and placed over the back of the sofa, blood-soaked red shirt deposited on the counter top as Eren made fast work of unclipping and removing the top half of the harness so that he could get access to the area he was dealing with.  
  
Levi had several cuts of varying sizes on his outer arms and torso but thankfully no bullet wounds so it looked like it was all bruising and he was going to need stitches and sleep to ward off any exhaustion while his body healed up the stress that had been placed on him internally. Eren’s attention was turned to the largest of these.  
“Give me a pain rating from one to ten, I need to know how much feeling you still have around the cut. You must have gone into shock by now.”  
“Four.”  
Eren frowned, knowing that the injury must be worse than that. Putting up a brave front wasn’t going to help him.  
“Alright. Now a real one.”  
“Still four. Maybe five. Hurry your ass up, Jaeger, this hurts.”  
His next stop was the sink to fill a bowl with warm water and fetch a cloth so that he could clean the cut up – it started around the bottom of his ribcage and ended more in the direction of his hip, curved around his side, and looked a lot deeper at the top. Which was good, because it meant he’d avoided damage to his internal organs, but at the same time was bad because it was still bleeding and wasn’t likely to stop. If he lost more than half his blood supply he was going to black out and possibly die, and the thought would have scared Eren into stalling completely if he wasn’t so focused on fixing everything. He could panic later.  
  
His touch was firm but careful was he used the wet cloth to wash the blood away, ignoring any unwilling sounds of pain the touch coaxed from the older nephilim, and then went back to his first aid kit for cotton and bandages. The wound  _was_  healing, cleaning the old blood away from the affected area helping the pale skin knit itself back together as it always did as he kept getting rid of the blood. The left-over toxicity from the demon’s aura was his next thing to treat, and that wasn’t something he could do with a a sewing kit.  
  
After a moment or two he remembered the one other thing left to do, giving Levi the cotton to soak the blood up so it didn’t get everywhere while he crossed around the breakfast bar to his fridge and pulled out a bottle of vodka. He had a bottle of surgical spirits somewhere, but this was a lot quicker and easier to find and it wasn’t going to hurt any less, so he stopped off for a shot glass from one of the overhead cupboards, placing it down, full, on the breakfast bar in front of Levi with a grim smile as he waved the bottle at him.  
“This is going to sting like a bitch, so you may as well.”  
Levi nodded, knocking the shot straight back without any further comment, and Eren sighed, uncapping the bottle again and pouring some alcohol onto another cloth, before moving it down over the cut which was only just beginning to heal. He felt Levi shift at the contact and heard the hissed swear-words leave his mouth but there was no way it could have been avoided, so he wasn’t going to apologise. They both knew it was better than chancing infection even if Levi’s body was going to fully heal all the damage over the next day or so anyway if left to its own devices.  
  
The bleeding had stopped entirely by the time he was finished with the bandaging, and then he concentrated on getting rid of the toxicity he could still feel hanging around the injured nephilim like a smog. His hands softly rested on the tops of Levi’s shoulders and he closed his eyes, using what little conscious control he had of his own healing abilities to bolster Levi’s, forcing his body to work double time in order to flush the demonic aura out of his system completely, all the cuts shallow enough not to need treatment healing into immaculate if blood-stained skin straight away.  
  
He was unsteady on his feet by the time the process was done, drained of energy completely, and rested heavily against the counter himself. He had managed to avoid getting any of the blood on his own clothes and he could clean his hands off easy enough with the bowl of warm water that was now half stained blood red. All in all, the process hadn’t been too much of a pain – for him at least. And now that Levi was safe again the implications of it all were starting to crash back on him. Marco could have died.  _Levi_  could have died. He could have left and just never come back.  
And that scared him more than anything else.   
“You’re done.” it was evident by the shakiness to his voice that he was swallowing down his own fears, his hands shaking slightly as he stared down at the stone counter under his spread fingers. “You’ll be okay.” He didn’t know who of them he was trying to convince with that, really.  
  
"You didn't have to do that kid, it will have... cleared... on its own."  
"Don't give me that, you nearly bled out.” Eren replied, trying not to snap at him because he valued his life but still not out of his scolding kind of mood. Even if it was incredibly hypocritical of him considering the things he’d said to Levi in the past when the older nephilim had tried to convince him that he shouldn’t be throwing his own life away. “Why the hell did you fly here? You could have got someone to come to you from HQ."  
  
"No one’s _'fetching'_ me." The words came out not half as harsh as they usually did, despite an attempt, and that in itself told him that Levi still wasn’t 100% okay yet. He needed to lie down until his blood pressure got back to normal and he came out of shock. "I can fly myself."  
"And what if you'd passed out while flying? Your pride won't stop you dying from that kind of fall."  
"Marco was there. He'd... have caught me."  
  
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Marco to take care of Levi while they were hunting, not in the slightest, because he already took good enough care of Jean and Eren could see that even if he couldn’t fathom how he put up with Jean’s attitude at times. It was purely his worry speaking now.  
  
"And if he didn't? You're too important to.. people.” He caught the silent ‘to me.’ at the last second and hoped that Levi would be too preoccupied trying to keep himself standing to catch the implied words, knowing that he should stop really because at this point he was just reassuring himself that Levi was okay by telling him off like this just to hear his voice. “Besides, it's not me you have to worry about, Hanji's going to bust something when she finds out."  
"I can... I can deal with her..."  
  
Levi tried to stand, and Eren was behind him in an instant as he swayed on the spot and hand to grasp the counter for support, not in the least bit surprised that he couldn’t stand by himself after that. His hands automatically rested against Levi’s hips and pulled him back against his chest to centre him.  
"Get off, I can walk."   
“Yeah yeah, I know.”  
  
Eren nodded in an attempt to pacify him but otherwise ignored him, hooking one arm under Levi’s shoulders to allow him to move without risking falling over and then directing him into his bedroom, pushing him onto the bed to get him to sit down. He’d stopped bleeding now so there was no worry about getting blood on his bed and he didn’t mind Levi being there at all. They’d become a lot closer than he ever thought they would over the last two weeks and he’d learnt a lot once he stopped being so stubborn, so by this point he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He was still looking at the situation with an analytical mind anyway, and knew that Levi would feel a lot better a lot quicker like this.  
“Now you don’t have to walk. Just stay there while your head stops swimming.”  
Then he retreated from the room, going to get Levi a glass of water. So help him, if he came back and found that he’d tried to get up again there was going to be hell to pay.  
  
As it turned out Eren barely had time to pour the glass before he heard staggered footsteps and saw Levi leaning against the doorframe, hurrying back over to him with a stark frown on his face.  
"Where the fuck d'you think you're going?" He didn't sound as overtly annoyed as he actually was this time, his voice dangerously sugar laden as he pushed Levi back in the direction of the bed and then set down the glass of water in his hand on top of his dresser. Couldn't turn his back for two damn minutes, honestly. It was like being Armin trying to look after himself when he was hurt, and he greatly regretted being that much of a pain in the ass now if this was what it was like to be on the receiving end.   
  
"Lie down. Your blood pressure needs to get back to normal."  
He accompanied the instruction by settling himself on the bed next to him and pressing on his shoulders to get him to lie back properly and stay still, retreating to sit cross-legged as he rested his arms in his lap and held Levi's gaze, his expression unusually strict.  
  
It was probably because it was his bed rather than the sofa that Levi had tried to move, but the sofa had been further away and would have involved a lot more manoeuvring, so he opted for in here instead. He had no qualms with the idea of sleeping on the sofa, pulling out one of the sleeping bags in his storage cupboard to curl up on the floor with later so that Levi could stay here for the night before returning to his previous perch. He sure as hell wasn't letting Levi try to go home.  
"Fine, but I'm not sleeping here.” Levi retorted. “I'll sleep on the sofa or something."  
"Yes you are, I have a sleeping bag so I'll be fine. It's either sleep here or I'm letting Hanji take you to HQ for the night, so you're better off letting me help."  
He just needed to take his shoes and the rest of his harness off first or he’d probably not be able to sleep that well anyway. They both knew Eren was never going to carry through on the threat, because he wouldn’t wish a nagging Hanji on anyone, but he made it anyway, watching as Levi groaned and shielded his face with his hands.  
"Whatever. I could just take the sleeping bag if you won’t let me sleep on the sofa."  
"Nope. You're having my bed. One night isn't going to kill me and I probably wouldn't have slept anyway."  
"Why would you not have slept?"  
Eren dropped his gaze, knowing it probably wouldn’t come as a surprise that he more or less had some form of PTSD, if he went as far as to risk a self diagnosis, but not wanting to admit that he constantly had trouble sleeping anyway.  
"I get nightmares."  
  
"Then I’m just going to make it worse by... being here... in such a state..." And then Levi was trying to move again like the idiot that he was, not getting very far before Eren was after him like a shot.  
"If I have to sit on you to keep you lying down I will do.” He replied pointedly, teeth worrying at his lip as he tried to think of another way to make sure Levi would stay down, pulling unsuccessfully at his shoulders again in an attempt to get him to stay put. “Don't make me play the 'let’s freak out Lance Corporal Levi' game again."  
"Because that ended so well for you last time, kid..."  
"I don't care how it ends if it means you're okay again. You nearly.. I'm fucking anxious enough right now, okay?” His voice trailed off, trying not to sound desperate, his hands shaking slightly. “Just  _please_  stay there. It's only for one night."  
  
"Can you at least help me out of this harness and get my boots off? And I'm pretty sure.. if I lie on my front.. there will be blood all over your bed thanks to my trousers having blood on the front." That seemed enough to get him to stop trying to move away, and Eren smiled, allowing himself to relax. Then he got up and went over to his wardrobe to leave Levi some clothes out before moving to kneel in front of him so he could help him get the rest of the harness off.  
“Alright. As long as you make sure you get a decent night’s sleep.”  
  
He knew he was taking advantage of the fact that Levi was too tired and dizzy to argue in order to be the person bossing him around for a change, but to be honest it felt a little weird. By the time he'd gone to get his own drink to give Levi space to change into his clothes, he came back to find him staring tiredly at his own hands, mostly lost in the too-long sleeves of one of Eren's shirts, pale fingers poking from the edges. It was oddly cute for the grouchy looking Lance Corporal, and it helped to relax Eren too, somewhat, a calm smile spreading across his face as he crossed back to the bed and sat down. He didn't think Levi would mind too much if it would help him sleep, so he tentatively tugged him back down onto the bed, meeting not enough resistance this time of Levi to stay upright, and then allowed his mind to wander as he stroked his hand through Levi's hair.  
"What are you doing, brat?"  
  
A hand slid around his wrist, stopping the movement in its tracks, but after a moment or two it seemed that Levi reconsidered and just left him to it. It wasn't like there was anyone but himself and Levi around to see it so it didn't really matter in the long run. His smile widened a little as he watched Levi's eyes close as he gave up on the not trying to go to sleep front, his body obviously wanting to sleep more than his mind wanted to object to the touch on principle.  
"Helping, sir." he replied, clearly back to his routinely more formal manner of address now he wasn't so worried about Levi's safety. "I'll stop if you like."  
"Don't care either way."  
  
Eren slowly retracted his hand and sat back as he watched Levi falling asleep. He was tempted to just get a blanket and curl up on top of the covers anyway, it wasn’t like he would risk disturbing Levi like that as long as he made sure his back wasn’t to him so that he didn’t nudge him with his wings when they inevitably appeared while he slept.  
  
He could feel the anxious thoughts growing in the back of his mind as he remembered the blood, thought about how much Levi might have lost, what might have happened if they hadn’t won that fight. Although he’d spent so long trying to avoid having to hunt with him at first, he had never wanted Levi to be hurt. The very thought made him nauseous, his throat constricting.   
  
Closing his eyes, he breathed in, counting to four, and then held his breath for another seven seconds before taking a deliberately slow exhale. It took three more repetitions of the exercise for the shaky, constricted feeling to go away. He’d got used to doing it after asking Hanji if there was any way he could quickly kill off his panic attacks so that they didn’t keep disrupting the sparring sessions, because Levi had been determined to keep pushing him until he could stop his anger blinding him, at least when they sparred. After Armin he hadn’t tried it again with anyone but him until the last few days. It had been successful, but Eren never felt any better for only just managing to catch himself than he did for all the times Levi had had to stop him by force.   
  
There were times when he just wanted to be pointed at a demon and told to maul it, instead of doing all this sparring until both of them were too exhausted to carry on, but he wasn’t signed off to hunt again yet. Probably wouldn’t be until after Christmas, by the looks of things.  
  
Seeking to distract himself, he pulled his phone from his pocket, flipped it onto silent, and took a photo of Levi to send to Armin as an image text.  
  
_Eren: Hey Shroom, guess who’s visiting?  
Armin: Visiting your *bed*?! Eren, you sly dog! _ _  
Eren: Not like that, Armin. They got jumped by some Legion tonight. He’s exhausted and injured and he didn’t want to put up with Hanji or HQ so Marco dropped him off here. Medical student, remember?  
Armin: That’s fair enough. Hanji does tend to get a little enthusiastic and you’re gentle enough to avoid his wrath. Did you go all disappointed mother on him?  
Eren: No.  
Armin: Liar. He’d be on your sofa if you hadn’t and we both know it!  
Eren: Go back to your FPS, Armin._  
  
Come to think, he’d better let Marco know that Levi was okay, so he sent another text to him too via Jean, since he didn’t have the freckled teen’s number yet and he knew they’d be hanging out in Jean’s apartment by now since Marco hadn’t gotten that hurt and was likely just on the shaken side.  
He wasn’t expecting to receive a reply almost instantly, the text simply saying  _‘Pictures of cuddling or it didn’t happen, because we both know you want it. $25.’_  
  
Eren was instantly suspicious, but who was it going to hurt? Levi was asleep and not waking up any time soon and Jean was stupid enough to keep giving him money every time he wanted him to do something. If he could spend three weeks getting up close and personal sparring with the guy a quick photo with the camera angled to conveniently exaggerate how close they were couldn’t hurt.  
So he did it, ignoring the telltale heat of his face as he carefully stretched his legs out and shuffled a bit closer to Levi on his side, slipping one arm under the older nephilim’s neck in an effort to make it look like they were wrapped up around each other before holding his phone up and smiling into the camera, taking another photo.  
  
He’d just finished uploading the shot to his Snapchat, tagged as per request, when he felt movement and let out a quiet shocked squeak, hit in the face as his phone slipped from between his fingers and skittered over the side of the bed. Apparently aware of the proximity of his warm body, Levi had automatically moved closer in his sleep, winding his calves around Eren’s in a subconscious effort to get comfy without agitating his healing injury, his face buried into the junction between Eren’s neck and shoulder as his fingers closed around the material of Eren’s dark green hoodie. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Eren to realise that he wasn’t going to be able to extract himself without waking Levi up and getting caught out, now.  
Fuck.

* * *

  
It took an hour or two of having to do anything he could think of that didn’t involve moving make sure he stayed awake long enough to wiggle free of Levi’s grasp and retreat to his sleeping bag, and even this morning he couldn’t think back to it without blushing. It had been warm and too comforting and just too  _safe_ , with Levi’s warm weight wrapped around him and the more he tried not to dwell on it, the more he found himself doing just that. He could easily imagine waking up to the sight of Levi tucked up in bed next to him being part of his normal routine, could easily imagine going to work with him and then coming back to spend the weekends curled up on the sofa just killing time with each other. If he allowed his mind to stretch that far, he wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea of letting Levi drag him to bed for other reasons too…  
  
When Levi ventured out of his bedroom, Eren was rested on the countertop in a pair of hastily thrown on black jogging bottoms and no shirt, fresh out of the shower and absentmindedly rubbing at his damp, messy hair with a fluffy black towel, sending droplets of water all over himself in the process while his other hand nursed a cup of coffee. The sight of Levi in his shirt still looking sleepy caused the fierce blush from the night before to come back with a vengeance, and it was all he could do to keep a straight face as he mentally went through what pain medication he had lying around, the first aid kit still open on the table even though he’d cleared away everything else from the previous night.  
“Morning, sir. Did you want some coffee?” he offered, raising his cup slightly. “Pain meds?”

"I can't stomach coffee." He didn’t look like he could, either, having gone paler than usual and an unhealthy shade of green at the freshly ground coffee smell saturating the apartment. "Stuff to help with the pain would be good though. Even if they aren't non-drowsy."  
Silently Eren rifled through the little tray of medicine packets he kept in his kitchen cupboard and provided him with another glass of water and a few painkillers.  
“I’m not interrupting and plan by being here, am I?”  
To tell the truth even if he had been interrupting something, Eren would have reorganised it so that Levi could stay and not have to worry about going anywhere until he was feeling better, but he didn't point that out, merely smiling instead as he shook his head briefly and returned to the sink to refill the glass of water, moving it to the small end table on one side of the sofa.  
"Not unless you count lazy daytime TV as a plan, no."  
"Mind if I join you in that? I am in no state to fly home."  
"I don't mind." he replied, shrugging as he pulled off the fluffy blanket he usually left lying over his sofa and then settled himself in place, patting the cushions beside him. "Stay as long as you like."   
  
He didn't really mind if it would take Levi another night or two to get back to normal, his sleeping bag was comfortable enough. As soon as the older nephilim got settled he leant over and tucked the blanket over his shoulders to keep him warm, knowing from personal experience that he probably still felt like death warmed up and wanted to go back to sleep. He was quite happy to spend the rest of the day rooting through Netflix to see what there was to watch and just ordering pizza when they got hungry.  
  
Levi came over to join him after not that much longer, and if it weren’t for still being concerned for his health Eren would have been stealing glances back at him every so often because he was only wearing _his_ shirt from the previous night. It was ridiculously oversized on Levi and entirely too cute because of that fact, but he got the feeling actually putting that in words would gain _him_ some injuries.  
  
The fact that the older nephilim accepted the blanket being put across his shoulders without complaint and then eventually flopped over onto his side and curled up on the sofa underneath it made him smile, despite Levi still looking exhausted and barely keeping his eyes open for more than five minutes at a time. Eventually his body gave up the fight when Eren didn’t talk, mostly laughing to himself at a few random episodes of _The Big Bang Theory_ , and he fell soundly asleep again.  
If Eren took one more photo for his rapidly growing collection of what he called ‘drawing Levi references’, something he _still_ found himself doing almost incessantly if he had a pencil in his hand and a spare fifteen minutes, no one need ever find out.


End file.
